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KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
KNIGHTS 
 
 AND THEIR DAYS 
 
 I 
 
 BY DR. 
 
 DORAN 
 
 AUTHOR OF "LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER, 
 "TABLE TRAITS," "HABITS AND MEN," ETC. 
 
 " Oh, 'tis a brave profession, and rewards 
 All loss we meet, with double weight of glory." 
 
 Shirley (The Gentleman of Venice.) 
 
 REDFIELD 
 
 34 BEEKMAN STREET, NEW YORK 
 1856 
 
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 ^CE UNKNOWN 
 M 4 y 2 8 ISZ5 
 
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 33 
 
 TO 
 
 PHILIPPE WATIER, ESQ. 
 
 IN MEMORY OF MERRY NIGHTS AND DAYS NEAR METZ AND THE 
 MOSELLE, 
 
 THIS LITTLE VOLUME 
 Ks mscribeti 
 
 BY HIS VERY SINCERE FRIEND, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE PAGE 9 
 
 THE TRAINING OF PAGES 30 
 
 KNIGHTS AT HOME 36 
 
 LOVE IN CHEVALIERS, AND CHEVALIERS IN LOVE 51 
 
 DUELLING, DEATH, AND BURIAL 65 
 
 THE KNIGHTS WHO "GREW TIRED OF IT" 78 
 
 FEMALE KNIGHTS AND JEANNE DARC 104 
 
 THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM 113 
 
 SIR GUY OF WARWICK, AND WHAT BEFELL HIM 133 
 
 GARTERIANA 148 
 
 FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER 170 
 
 THE POOR KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR, AND THEIR DOINGS 184 
 
 THE KNIGHTS OF THE SAINTE AMPOULE 194 
 
 THE ORDER OF THE HOLY GHOST 200 
 
 JACQUES DE LELAING 208 
 
 THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY 228 
 
 THE RECORD OF RAMBOUILLET 263 
 
 SIR JOHN FALSTAFF 276 
 
 STAGE KNIGHTS 295 
 
 STAGE LADIES, AND THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY 312 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE KlNGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS ; FROM THE NORMANS TO THE 
 
 STUARTS PAGE 329 
 
 "THE INSTITUTION OF A gentleman" 351 
 
 THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS J THE STUARTS 358 
 
 THE SPANISH MATCH 364 
 
 THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS ; FROM STUART TO BRUNSWICK 375 
 
 RECIPIENTS OF KNIGHTHOOD 388 
 
 RICHARD CARR, PAGE, AND GUT FAUX, ESQUIRE 410 
 
 ULRICH VON HUTTEN . . . . „. 420 
 
 SHAM KNIGHTS 439 
 
 PIECES OF ARMOR 455 
 
THE 
 
 KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE. 
 
 " La bravoure est une qualite innee, on ne se la donne pas." 
 
 Napoleon I. 
 
 Dr. Lingard, when adverting to the sons of Henry II., and 
 their knightly practices, remarks that although chivalry was con- 
 sidered the school of honor and probity, there was not overmuch 
 of those or of any other virtues to be found among the members 
 of the chivalrous orders. He names the vices that were more 
 common, as he thinks, and probably with some justice. Hallam, 
 on the other hand, looks on the institution of chivalry as the best 
 school of moral discipline in the Middle Ages : and as the great 
 and influential source of human improvement. "It preserved," 
 he says, "an exquisite sense of honor, which in its results worked 
 as great effects as either of the powerful spirits of liberty and re- 
 ligion, which have given a predominant impulse to the moral sen- 
 timents and energies of mankind." 
 
 The custom of receiving arms at the age of manhood is supposed, 
 by the same author, to have been established among the nations 
 that overthrew the Eoman Empire ; and he cites the familiar pas- 
 sage from Tacitus, descriptive of this custom among the Germans. 
 At first, little but bodily strength seems to have been required on 
 the part of the candidate. The qualifications and the forms of 
 investiture changed or improved with the times. 
 
10 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 In a general sense, chivalry, according to Hallam, may be re- 
 ferred to the age of Charlemagne, when the Caballarii, or horse- 
 men, became the distinctive appellation of those feudal tenants 
 and allodial proprietors who were bound to serve on horseback. 
 When these were equipped and formally appointed to their mar- 
 tial duties, they were, in point of fact, knights, with so far more 
 incentives to distinction than modern soldiers, that each man de- 
 pended on himself, and not on the general body. Except in certain 
 cases, the individual has now but few chances of distinction ; and 
 knighthood, in its solitary aspect, may be said to have been blown 
 up by gunpowder. 
 
 As examples of the true knightly spirit in ancient times, Mr. 
 Hallam cites Achilles, who had a supreme indifference for the 
 question of what side he fought upon, had a strong affection for a 
 Jriend, and looked at death calmly. I think Mr. Hallam over-rates 
 the bully Greek considerably. His instance of the Cid Ruy 
 Diaz, as a perfect specimen of what the modern knight ought to 
 have been, is less to be gainsaid. 
 
 In old times, as in later days, there were knights who acquired 
 the appellation by favor rather than service ; or by a compelled 
 rather than a voluntary service. The old landholders, the Cabal- 
 larii, or Milites, as they came to be called, were landholders who 
 followed their lord to the field, by feudal obligation : paying their 
 rent, or part of it, by such service. The voluntary knights were 
 those " younger brothers," perhaps, who sought to amend their 
 indifferent fortunes by joining the banner of some lord. These 
 were not legally knights, but they might win the honor by their 
 prowess ; and thus in arms, dress, and title, the younger brother 
 became the equal of the wealthy landholders. He became even 
 their superior, in one sense, for as Mr. Hallam adds: — "The 
 territorial knights became by degrees ashamed of assuming a title 
 which the others had won by merit, till they themselves could 
 challenge it by real desert." 
 
 The connection of knighthood with feudal tenure was much 
 loosened, if it did not altogether disappear, by the Crusades. 
 There the knights were chiefly volunteers who served for pay : 
 all feudal service there was out of the question. Its connection 
 with religion was, on the other hand, much increased, particularly 
 
A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE. 11 
 
 among the Norman knights who had not hitherto, like the Anglo- 
 Saxons, looked upon chivalric investiture as necessarily a religious 
 ceremony. The crusaders made religious professors, at least, of 
 all knights, and never was one of these present at the reading 
 of the gospel, without holding the point of his sword toward the 
 book, in testimony of his desire to uphold what it taught by force 
 of arms. From this time the passage into knighthood was a sol- 
 emn ceremony ; the candidate was belted, white-robed, and ab- 
 solved after due confession, when his sword was blessed, and 
 Heaven was supposed to be its director. "With the love of God 
 was combined love for the ladies. What was implied was that 
 the knight should display courtesy, gallantry, and readiness to 
 defend, wherever those services were required by defenceless 
 women. Where such was bounden duty — but many knights did 
 not so understand it — there was an increase of refinement in 
 society; and probably there is nothing overcharged in the old 
 ballad which tells us of a feast at Perceforest, where eight hun- 
 dred knights sat at a feast, each of them with a lady at his side, 
 eating off the same plate ; the then fashionable sign of a refined 
 friendship, mingled with a spirit of gallantry. That the husbands 
 occasionally looked with uneasiness upon this arrangement, is illus- 
 trated in the unreasonably jealous husband in the romance of 
 " Lancelot du Lac ;" but, as the lady tells him, he had little right 
 to cavil at all, for it was an age since any knight had eaten with 
 her off the same plate. 
 
 Among the Romans the word virtue implied both virtue and 
 valor — as if bravery in a man were the same thing as virtue in 
 a woman. It certainly did not signify among Roman knights that 
 a brave man was necessarily virtuous. In more recent times the 
 word gallantry has been made also to take a double meaning, im- 
 plying not only courage in man, but his courtesy toward woman. 
 Both in ancient and modern times, however, the words, or their 
 meanings, have been much abused. At a more recent period, 
 perhaps, gallantry was never better illustrated than when in an 
 encounter by hostile squadrons near Cherbourg, the adverse fac- 
 tions stood still, on a knight, wearing the colors of his mistress, 
 advancing from the ranks of one party, and challenging to single 
 combat the cavalier in the opposite ranks who was the most 
 
12 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 deeply in love with his mistress. There was no lack of adversa- 
 ries, and the amorous knights fell on one another with a fury- 
 little akin to love. 
 
 A knight thus slain for his love was duly honored by his lady 
 and contemporaries. Thus we read in the history of Gyron le 
 Courtois, that the chivalric king so named, with his royal cousin 
 Melyadus, a knight, by way of equerry, and a maiden, went to- 
 gether in search of the body of a chevalier who had fallen pour 
 les beaux yeux of that very lady. They found the body pictu- 
 resquely disposed in a pool of blood, the unconscious hand still 
 grasping the hilt of the sword that had been drawn in honor of 
 the maiden. " Ah, beauteous friend !" exclaims the lady, " how 
 dearly hast thou paid for my love ! The good and the joy we 
 have shared have only brought thee death. Beauteous friend, 
 courteous and wise, valiant, heroic, good knight in every guise, 
 since thou has lost thy youth for me in this manner, in this strait, 
 and in this agony, as it clearly appears, what else remains for me 
 to suffer for thy sake, unless that I should keep you company ? 
 Friend, friend, thy beauty has departed for the love of me, thy 
 flesh lies here bloody. Friend, friend, we were both nourished 
 together. I knew not what love was when I gave my heart to 
 love thee," &c, &c, &c. "Young friend," continues the lady, 
 " thou wert my joy and my consolation : for to see thee and to 
 speak to thee alone were sufficient to inspire joy, &c, &c, &c. 
 Friend, what I behold slays me, I feel that death is within my 
 heart." The lady then took up the bloody sword, and requested 
 Melyadus to look after the honorable interment of the knight on 
 that spot, and that he would see her own body deposited by her 
 " friend's" side, in the same grave. Melyadus expressed great 
 astonishment at the latter part of the request, but as the lady in- 
 sisted that her hour was at hand, he promised to fulfil all her 
 wishes. Meanwhile the maiden knelt by the side of the dead 
 knight, held his sword to her lips, and gently died upon his breast. 
 Gyron said it was the wofullest sight that eye had ever beheld ; 
 but all courteous as Gyron was, and he was so to such a remark- 
 able degree that he derived a surname from his courtesy, I say 
 that in spite of his sympathy and gallantry, he appears to have 
 had a quick eye toward making such profit as authors could make 
 
A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE. 13 
 
 in those days, from ready writing upon subjects of interest. Be- 
 fore another word was said touching the interment of the two 
 lovers, Gyron intimated that he would write a ballad upon them 
 that should have a universal circulation, and be sung in all lands 
 where there were gentle hearts and sweet voices. Gyron per- 
 formed what he promised, and the ballad of " Absdlon and Cesala," 
 serves to show what very rough rhymes the courteous poet could 
 employ to illustrate a romantic incident. Let it be added that, 
 however the knights may sometimes have failed in their truth, 
 this was very rarely the case with the ladies. When Jordano 
 Bruno was received in his exile by Sir Philip Sidney, he requited 
 the hospitality by dedicating a poem to the latter. In this dedica- 
 tion, he says : " With one solitary exception, all misfortunes that 
 flesh is heir to have been visited on me. I have tasted every kind 
 of calamity but one, that of finding false a woman's love." 
 
 It was not every knight that could make such an exception. 
 Certainly not that pearl of knights, King Arthur himself. 
 What a wife had that knight in the person of Guinever ? Nay, 
 he is said to have had three wives of that name, and that all of 
 them were as faithless as ladies well could be. Some assert that 
 the described deeds of these three are in fact but the evil-doings 
 of one. However this may be, I may observe summarily here 
 what I have said in reference to Guinever in another place. With 
 regard to this triple-lady, the very small virtue of one third of the 
 whole will not salubriously leaven the entire lump. If romance 
 be true, and there is more about the history of Guinever than any 
 other lady — she was a delicious, audacious, winning, seductive, 
 irresistible, and heartless hussy ; and a shameless ! and a bare- 
 faced ! Only read " Sir Lancelot du Lac !" Yes, it can not be 
 doubted but that in the voluminous romances of the old day, there 
 was a sprinkling of historical facts. Now, if a thousandth part of 
 what is recorded of this heart-bewitching Guinever be true, she 
 must have been such a lady as we can not now conceive of. True 
 daughter of her mother Venus, when a son of Mars was not at 
 hand, she could stoop to Mulciber. If the king was not at home, 
 she could listen to a knight. If both were away, esquire or page 
 might speak boldly without fear of being unheeded ; and if all 
 were absent, in the chase, or at the fray, there was always a good- 
 
14 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 looking groom in the saddle-room with whom Guinever could con- 
 verse, without holding that so to do was anything derogatory. I 
 know no more merry reading than that same ton-weight of 
 romance which goes by the name of " Sir Lancelot du Lac." But 
 it is not of that sort which Mrs. Chapone would recommend to 
 young ladies, or that Dr. Cumming would read aloud in the Duke 
 of Argyll's drawing-room. It is a book, however, which a grave 
 man a little tired of his gravity, may look into between serious 
 studies and solemn pursuits — a book for a lone winter evening by 
 a library-fire, with wine and walnuts at hand ; or for an old-fash- 
 ioned summer's evening, in a bower through whose foliage the sun 
 pours his adieu, as gorgeously red as the Burgundy in your flask. 
 Of a truth, a man must be " in a concatenation accordingly," ere 
 he may venture to address himself to the chronicle which tells of 
 the " bamboches," " fredaines," and " bonibances," of Guinever the 
 Frail, and of Lancelot du Lac. 
 
 We confess to having more regard for Arthur than for his 
 triple-wife Guinever. As I have had occasion to say in other 
 pages, " I do not like to give up Arthur !" I love the name, the 
 hero, and his romantic deeds. I deem lightly of his light o'love 
 bearing. Think of his provocation both ways ! Whatever the 
 privilege of chivalry may have been, it was the practice of too 
 many knights to be faithless. They vowed fidelity, but they were 
 a promise-breaking, word-despising crew. On this point I am 
 more inclined to agree with Dr. Lingard than with Mr. Hallam. 
 Honor was ever on their lips, but not always in their hearts, and 
 it was little respected by them, when found in the possession of 
 their neighbor's wives. How does Scott consider them in this 
 respect, when in describing a triad of knights, he says, 
 
 " There were two who loved their neighbor's wires, 
 And one who loved his own." 
 
 Yet how is it that knights are so invariably mentioned with long- 
 winded laudation by Romish writers — always excepting Lingard 
 — when they desire to illustrate the devoted spirit of olden times ? 
 Is it that the knights were truthful, devout, chaste, God-fearing ? 
 not a jot ! Is it because the cavaliers cared but for one thing, in 
 the sense of having fear but for one thing, and that the devil ? 
 
A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE. 15 
 
 To escape from being finally triumphed over by the Father of 
 Evil, they paid largely, reverenced outwardly, confessed unre- 
 servedly, and were absolved plenarily. That is the reason why 
 chivalry was patted on the back by Rome. At the same time we 
 must not condemn a system, the principles of which were calcu- 
 lated to work such extensive ameliorations in society as chivalry. 
 Christianity itself might be condemned were we to judge of it by 
 the shortcomings of its followers. 
 
 But even Mr. Hallam is compelled at last, reluctantly, to confess 
 that the morals of chivalry were not pure. After ' all his praise 
 of the system, he looks at its literature, and with his eye resting 
 on the tales and romances written for the delight and instruction 
 of chivalric ladies and gentlemen, he remarks that the " violation 
 of marriage vows passes in them for an incontestable privilege of 
 the brave and the fair; and an accomplished knight seems 
 to have enjoyed as undoubted prerogatives, by general consent of 
 opinion, as were claimed by the brilliant courtiers of Louis XV." 
 There was an especial reason for this, the courtiers of Louis XV. 
 might be anything they chose, provided that with gallantry they 
 were loyal, courteous, and munificent. Now loyalty, courtesy, and 
 that prodigality which goes by the name of munificence, were ex- 
 actly the virtues that were deemed most essential to chivalry. 
 But these were construed by the old knights as they were by the 
 more modern courtiers. The first took advantages in combat that 
 would now be deemed disloyal by any but a Muscovite. The 
 second would cheat at cards in the gaming saloons of Versailles, 
 while they would run the men through who spoke lightly of their 
 descent. So with regard to courtesy, the knight was full of 
 honeyed phrases to his equals and superiors, but was as coarsely 
 arrogant as Menschikoff to an inferior. In the same way, Louis 
 XIV., who would never pass one of his own scullery-maids with- 
 out raising his plumed beaver, could address terms to the ladies 
 of his court, which, but for the sacred majesty which was supposed 
 to environ his person, might have purchased for him a severe cas- 
 tigation. Then consider the case of that " first gentleman in Eu- 
 rope," George, Prince of Wales : he really forfeited his right to 
 the throne by marrying a Catholic lady, Mrs. Fitzherbert, and he 
 freed himself unscrupulously from the scrape by uttering a lie. 
 
16 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 And so again with munificence ; the greater part of these knights 
 and courtiers were entirely thoughtless of the value of money* 
 At the Field of the Cloth of Gold, for instance, whole estates 
 were mortgaged or sold, in order that the owners might outshine 
 all competitors in the brilliancy and quality of their dress. This 
 sort of extravagance makes one man look glad and all his relatives 
 rueful. The fact is that when men thus erred, it was for want of 
 observance of a Christian principle ; and if men neglect that ob- 
 servance, it is as little in the power of chivalry as of masonry to 
 mend him. There was " a perfect idea" of chivalry, indeed, but 
 if any knight ever realized it in his own person, he was, simply, 
 nearly a perfect Christian, and would have been still nearer to 
 perfection in the latter character if he had studied the few simple 
 rules of the system of religion rather than the stilted and un- 
 steady ones of romance. The study of the latter, at all events, 
 did not prevent, but in many instances caused a dissoluteness of 
 manners, a fondness for war rather than peace, and a wide distinc- 
 tion between classes, making aristocrats of the few, and villains of 
 the many. 
 
 Let me add here, as I have been speaking of the romance of 
 " Lancelot du Lac," that I quite agree with Montluc, who after 
 completing his chronicle of the History of France, observed that 
 it would be found more profitable reading than either Lancelot or 
 Amadis. La Noue especially condemns the latter as corrupting 
 the manners of the age. Southey, again, observes that these 
 chivalric romances acquired their poison in France or in Italy. 
 The Spanish and Portuguese romances he describes as free from 
 all taint. In the Amadis the very well-being of the world is made 
 to rest upon chivalry. " What would become of the world," it is 
 asked in the twenty-second book of the Amadis, " if God did not 
 provide for the defence of the weak and helpless against unjust 
 usurpers ? And how could provision be made, if good knights 
 were satisfied to do nothing else but sit in chamber with the ladies ? 
 What would then the world become, but a vast community of 
 brigands ?" 
 
 Lamotte Levayer was of a different opinion. " Les armes," he 
 says, when commenting upon chivalry and arms generally ; " Les 
 armes detruisent tous les arts excepte ceux qui favorisent la gloire." 
 
A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE. 17 
 
 In Germany, too, where chivalry was often turned to the oppres- 
 sion of the weak rather than employed for their protection, the 
 popular contempt and dread of " knightly principles" were early 
 illustrated in the proverb, " Er will Bitter an mir werden," He 
 wants to play the knight over me. In which proverb, knight 
 stands for oppressor or insulter. In our own country the order 
 came to be little cared for, but on different grounds. 
 
 Dr. Nares in his " Heraldic Anomalies," deplores the fact that 
 mere knighthood has fallen into contempt. He dates this from 
 the period when James I. placed baronets above knights. The 
 hereditary title became a thing to be coveted, but knights who 
 were always held to be knights bachelors, could not of course be- 
 queath a title to child or children who were not supposed in her- 
 aldry to exist. The Doctor quotes Sir John Feme, to show that 
 Olibion, the son of Asteriel, of the line of Japhet, was the first 
 knight ever created. The personage in question was sent forth to 
 battle, after his sire had smitten him lightly nine times with Ja- 
 phet's falchion, forged before the flood. There is little doubt but 
 that originally a knight was simply Knecht, servant of the king. 
 Dr. Nares says that the Thanes were so in the north, and that 
 these, although of gentle blood, exercised the offices even of 
 cooks and barbers to the royal person. But may not these offices 
 have been performed by the " unter Thans," or deputies ? I shall 
 have occasion to observe, subsequently, on the law which deprived 
 a knight's descendants of his arms, if they turned merchants ; but 
 in Saxon times it is worthy of observation, that if a merchant 
 made three voyages in one of his own ships, he was thenceforward 
 the Thane's right-worthy, or equal. 
 
 Among the Romans a blow on the ear gave the slave freedom. 
 Did the blow on the shoulder given to a knight make a free-ser- 
 vant of him ? Something of the sort seems to have been intended. 
 The title was doubtless mainly but not exclusively military. To 
 dub, from the Saxon word duhban, was either to gird or put on, 
 " don," or was to strike, and perhaps both may be meant, for the 
 knight was girt with spurs, as well as stricken, or geschlagen as 
 the German term has it. 
 
 There was striking, too, at the unmaking of a knight. His 
 heels were then degraded of their spurs, the latter being beaten 
 
 2 
 
18 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 or chopped away. " His heels deserved it," says Bertram of the 
 cowardly Parolles, " his heels deserved it for usurping of his spurs 
 so long." The sword, too, on such occasions, was broken. 
 
 Fuller justly says that " the plainer the coat is, the more ancient 
 and honorable." He adds, that "two colors are necessary and 
 most highly honorable: three are very highly honorable; four 
 commendable ; five excusable ; more disgraceful." He must have 
 been a gastronomic King-at-Arms, who so loaded a "coat" with 
 fish, flesh, and fowl, that an observer remarked, "it was well 
 victualled enough to stand a siege." Or is the richest coloring, 
 but, as Fuller again says, " Herbs vert, being natural, are better 
 than Or" He describes a " Bend as the best ordinary, being a 
 belt athwart," but a coat bruised with a bar sinister is hardly a 
 distinction to be proud of. If the heralds of George the Second's 
 time looked upon that monarch as the son of Count Konigsmark, 
 as Jacobite-minded heralds may have been malignant enough to 
 do, they no doubt mentally drew the degrading bar across the 
 royal arms, and tacitly denied the knighthood conferred by what 
 they, in such foolish case, would have deemed an illegitimate hand. 
 Alluding to reasons for some bearings, Fuller tells us that, 
 " whereas the Earls of Oxford anciently gave their ' coats' plain, 
 quarterly gules and or, they took afterward in the first a mullet or 
 star-argent, because the chief of the house had a falling-star, as 
 it was said, alighting on his shield as he was fighting in the Holy 
 Land." 
 
 It is to be observed that when treating of precedency, Fuller 
 places knights, or "soldiers" with seamen, civilians, and physi- 
 cians, and after saints, confessors, prelates, statesmen, and judges. 
 Knights and physicians he seems to have considered as equally 
 terrible to life ; but in his order of placing he was led by no par- 
 ticular principle, for among the lowest he places " learned writers," 
 and " benefactors to the public." He has, indeed, one principle, 
 as may be seen, wherein he says, " I place first princes, good man- 
 ners obliging all other persons to follow them, as religion obliges 
 me to follow God's example by a royal recognition of that original 
 precedency, which he has granted to his vicegerents." 
 
 The Romans are said to have established the earliest known 
 order of knighthood ; and the members at one time wore rings, as 
 
A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE. 19 
 
 a mark of distinction, as in later times knights wore spurs. The 
 knights of the Holy Roman Empire were members of a modern 
 order, whose sovereigns are not, what they would have themselves 
 considered, descendants of the Caesars. If we only knew what 
 our own Round Table was, and where it stood, we should be en- 
 abled to speak more decisively upon the question of the chevaliers 
 who sat around it. But it is undecided whether the table was not 
 really a house. At it, or in it, the knights met during the season 
 of Pentecost, but whether the assembly was collected at Winches- 
 ter or Windsor no one seems able to determine ; and he would 
 impart no particularly valuable knowledge even if he could. 
 
 Knighthood was a sort of nobility worth having, for it testified 
 to the merit of the wearer. An inherited title should, indeed, 
 compel him who succeeds to it, to do nothing to disgrace it : but 
 preserving the lustre is not half so meritorious as creating it. 
 Knights bachelors were so called because the distinction was con- 
 ferred for some act of personal courage, to reward for which the 
 offspring of the knight could make no claim. He was, in this re- 
 spect, to them as though he had been never married. The knight 
 bachelor was a truly proud man. The word hnecht simply implied 
 a servant, sworn to continue good service in honor of the sover- 
 eign, and of God and St. George. " I remain your sworn ser- 
 vant" is a form of epistolary valediction which crept into the letters 
 of other orders in later times. The manner of making was more 
 theatrical than at the present time ; and we should now smile if 
 we were to see, on a lofty scaffold in St. Paul's, a city gentleman 
 seated in a chair of silver adorned with green silk, undergoing ex- 
 hortation from the bishop, and carried up between two lords, to be 
 dubbed under the sovereign's hand, a good knight, by the help of 
 Heaven and his patron saint. 
 
 In old days belted earls could create knights. In modern times, 
 the only subject who is legally entitled to confer the honor of 
 chivalry is the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; and some of his 
 " subjects" consider it the most terrible of his privileges. The at- 
 tempt to dispute the right arose, perhaps, from those who dreaded 
 the exercise of it on themselves. However this may be, it is cer- 
 tain that the vexata questio was finally set at rest in 1823, when 
 the judges declared that the power in question undoubtedly resided 
 
20 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 in the Lords Lieutenant, since the Union, as it did in the viceroys 
 who reigned vicariously previous to that period. According to 
 the etiquette of heraldry, the distinctive appellation " Sir" should 
 never be omitted even when the knight is a noble of the first he- 
 reditary rank. " The Right Honorable Sir Hugh Percy, Duke 
 of Northumberland," would have been the proper heraldic denning 
 of his grace when he became Knight of the Garter, for it is a rule 
 that " the greater dignity doth never drown the lesser, but both 
 stand together in one person." 
 
 A knight never surrendered his sword but to a knight. " Are 
 you knight and gentleman ?" asked Suffolk, when, four hundred 
 years ago, he yielded to Regnault: "I am a gentleman," said 
 Regnault, " but I am not yet a knight." Whereupon Suffolk bade 
 him kneel, dubbed him knight, received the accustomed oaths, and 
 then gave up his old sword to the new chevalier. 
 
 Clark considered that the order was degraded from its exclu- 
 sively military character, when membership was conferred upon 
 gownsmen, physician, burghers, and artists. He considered that 
 civil merit, so distinguished, was a loss of reputation to military 
 knights. The logic by which he arrives at such a conclusion is 
 rather of the loosest. It may be admitted, however, that the mat- 
 ter has been specially abused in Germany. Monsieur About, that 
 clever gentleman, who wrote " Tolla" out of somebody else's book, 
 very pertinently remarks in his review of the fine-art department 
 of the Paris Exhibition, that the difference between English and 
 German artists is, that the former are well-paid, but that very few 
 of them are knights, while the latter are ill-paid and consequently 
 ill-clothed ; but, for lack of clothes, have abundance of ribands. 
 
 Dr. Nares himself is of something of the opinion of Clark, and 
 he ridicules the idea of a chivalric and martial title being given to 
 brewers, silversmiths, attorneys, apothecaries, upholsterers, hosiers, 
 tailors, &c. He asserts that knighthood should belong only to 
 military members : but of these no inconsiderable number would 
 have to be unknighted, or would have to wait an indefinite time 
 for the honor were the old rule strictly observed, whereby no man 
 was entitled to the rank and degree of knighthood, who had not 
 actually been in battle and captured a prisoner with his own 
 hands.. With respect to the obligation on knights to defend and 
 
A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE. 21 
 
 maintain all ladies, gentlewomen, widows, and orphans ; the one 
 class of men may be said to be just as likely to fulfil this obliga- 
 tion, as the other class. 
 
 France, Italy, and Germany, long had their forensic knights, 
 certain titles at the bar giving equal privileges ; and the obliga- 
 tions above alluded to were supposed to be observed by these 
 knights — who found esquires in their clerks, in the forensic war 
 which they were for ever waging in defence of right. Unhappily 
 these forensic chevaliers so often fought in defence of wrong and 
 called it right, that the actual duty was indiscriminately performed 
 or neglected. 
 
 It has often been said of " orders" that they are indelible. How- 
 ever this may be with the clergy, it is especially the case with 
 knights. To whatever title a knight might attain, duke, earl, or 
 baron, he never ceased to be a knight. In proof too that the latter 
 title was considered one of augmentation, is cited the case of Louis 
 XI., who, at his coronation, was knighted by Philip, Duke of Bur- 
 gundy. " If Louis," says an eminent writer (thus cited by Dr. 
 Nares), "had been made duke, marquis, or earl, it would have 
 detracted from him, all those titles being in himself." 
 
 The crown, when it stood in need of the chivalrous arms of its 
 knights, called for the required feudal service, not from its earls 
 as such, but from its barons. To every earldom was annexed a 
 barony, whereby their feudal service with its several dependent 
 duties was alone ascertained. " That is," says Berington, in his 
 Henry II., " the tenure of barony and not of earldom constituted 
 the legal vassal of the crown. Each earl was at the same time a 
 baron, as were the bishops and some abbots and priors of orders." 
 
 Some of these barons were the founders of parish churches, but 
 the terms on which priest and patron occasionally lived may be 
 seen in the law, whereby patrons or feudatarii killing the rector, 
 vicar, or clerk of their church, or mutilating him, were condemned 
 to lose their rights ; and their posterity, to the fourth generation, 
 was made incapable of benefice or prelacy in religious houses. 
 The knightly patron was bound to be of the same religious opin- 
 ions, of course, as his priest, or his soul had little chance of being 
 prayed for. In later times we have had instances of patrons de- 
 termining the opinions of the minister. Thus as a parallel, or 
 
22 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 rather in contrast with measures as they stood between Sir Knight 
 and Sir Priest, may be taken a passage inserted in the old deeds 
 of the Baptist chapel at Oulney. In this deed the managers or 
 trustees injoined that " no person shall ever be chosen pastor of 
 this church, who shall differ in his religious sentiments from the 
 Rev. John Gibbs of Newcastle. It is rather a leap to pass thus 
 from the baronial knights to the Baptist chapels, but the matter 
 has to do with my subject at both extremities. Before leaving it 
 I will notice the intimation proudly made on the tombstone in 
 Bunhill Fields Cemetery, of Dame Mary Page, relict of Sir 
 George Page. The lady died more than a century and a quarter 
 ago, and although the stone bears no record of any virtue save 
 that she was patient and fearless under suffering, it takes care to 
 inform all passers-by, that this knight's lady, "in sixty-seven 
 months was tapped sixty-six times, and had taken away two hun- 
 dred and forty gallons of water, without ever repining at her case, 
 or ever fearing its operation." I prefer the mementoes of knight's 
 ladies in olden times which recorded their deeds rather than their 
 diseases, and which told of them, as White said of Queen Mary, 
 that their "knees were hard with kneeling." 
 
 I will add one more incident, before changing the topic, having 
 reference as it has to knights, maladies, and baptism. In 1660, 
 Sir John Floyer was the most celebrated knight-physician of his 
 day. He chiefly tilted against the disuse of baptismal immersion. 
 He did not treat the subject theologically, but in a. sanitary point 
 of view. He prophesied that England would return to the prac- 
 tice as soon as people were convinced that cold baths were safe 
 and useful. He denounced the first innovators who departed from 
 immersion, as the destroyers of the health of their children and of 
 posterity. Degeneracy of race, he said, had followed, hereditary 
 diseases increased, and men were mere carpet-knights unable to 
 perform such lusty deeds as their duly-immersed forefathers. 
 
 There are few volumes which so admirably illustrate what 
 knights should be, and what they sometimes were not, as De Join- 
 ville's Chronicle of the Crusades of St. Louis — that St. Louis, 
 who was himself the patron-saint of an order, the cross of which 
 was at first conferred on princes, and at last on perruquiers. The 
 faithful chronicler rather profanely, indeed, compares the royal 
 
•V FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE. 23 
 
 knight with God himself, " As God died for his people, so did 
 St. Louis often peril his life, and incurred the greatest dangers, for 
 the people of his kingdom." After all, this simile is as lame as it 
 is profane. The truth, nevertheless, as it concerns St. Louis, is 
 creditable to the illustrious king, saint, and chevalier. "In his 
 conversation he was remarkably chaste, for I never heard him, at 
 any time, utter an indecent word, nor make use of the devil's 
 name ; which, however, now is very commonly uttered by every 
 one, but which I firmly believe, is so far from being agreeable to 
 God, that it is highly displeasing to him." The King St. Louis, 
 mixed water with his wine, and tried to force his knights to follow 
 his example, adding, that " it was a beastly thing for an honorable 
 man to make himself drunk." This was a wise maxim, and one 
 naturally held by a son, whose mother had often declared to him, 
 that " she would rather he was in his grave, than that he should 
 commit a mortal sin." And yet wise as Ins mother, and wise as 
 her son was, the one could not give wise religious instructors to 
 the latter, nor the latter perceive where their instruction was illogi- 
 cal. That it icas so, may be discerned in the praise given by De 
 Joinville, to the fact, that the knightly king in his dying moments 
 " called upon God and his saints, and especially upon St. James, 
 and St. Genevieve, as his intercessors" 
 
 It is interesting to learn from such good authority as De Join- 
 ville, the manner in which the knights who followed St. Louis 
 prepared themselves for their crusading mission. " When I was 
 ready to set out, I sent for the Abbot of Cheminon, who was at 
 that time considered as the most discreet man of all the White 
 Monks, to reconcile myself with him. He gave me my scarf, and 
 bound it on me, and likewise put the pilgrim's staff in my hand. 
 Instantly after I quitted the castle of Joinville, without even re- 
 entering it until my return from beyond sea. I made pilgrimages 
 to all the holy places in the neighborhood, such as Bliecourt, St. 
 Urban, and others near to Joinville. I dared never turn my eyes 
 that way, for fear of feeling too great regret, and lest my courage 
 should fail on leaving my two fine children, and my fair castle of 
 Joinville, which I loved in my heart." "One touch of nature 
 makes the whole world kin," and here we have the touch the poet 
 speaks of. Down the Saone and subsequently down the Rhone, 
 
24 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 the crusaders flock in ample vessels, but not large enough to contain 
 their steeds, which were led by grooms along the banks. When all 
 had re-embarked at Marseilles and were fairly out at sea, " the cap- 
 tain made the priests and clerks mount to the castle of the ship, and 
 chant psalms in praise of God, that he might be pleased to grant 
 us a prosperous voyage." While they were singing the Veni 
 Creator in full chorus, the mariners set the sails " in the name of 
 God," and forthwith a favorable breeze sprang up in answer to 
 the appeal, and knights and holy men were speedily careering 
 over the billows of the open sea very hopeful and exceedingly 
 sick. " I must say here," says De Joinville, who was frequently 
 so disturbed by the motion of the vessel, so little of a knight, and 
 so timid on the water as to require a couple of men to hold him as 
 he leant over the side in the helpless and unchivalrous attitude of 
 a cockney landsman on board a Boulogne steamer — " I must say," 
 he exclaims — sick at the very reminiscence, " that he is a great 
 fool who shall put himself in such dangers, having wronged any 
 one, or having any mortal sins on his conscience ; for when he 
 goes to sleep in the evening, he knows not if in the morning he 
 may not find himself under the sea." 
 
 This was a pious reflection, and it was such as many a knight, 
 doubtless, made on board a vessel, on the castle of which priests 
 and clerks sang Veni Creator and the mariners bent the sail u in 
 the name of God." But whether the holy men did not act up to 
 their profession, or the secular knights cared not to profit by their 
 example, certain it is that in spite of the saintly services and for- 
 malities on board ship, the chevaliers were no sooner on shore, 
 than they fell into the very worst of practices. De Joinville, 
 speaking of them at Damietta, remarks that the barons, knights, 
 and others, who ought to have practised self-denial and economy, 
 were wasteful of their means, prodigal of their supplies, and ad- 
 dicted to banquetings, and to the vices which attend on over-luxu- 
 riant living. There was a general waste of everything, health 
 included. The example set by the knights was adopted by the 
 men-at-arms, and the debauchery which ensued was terrific. The 
 men were reduced to the level of beasts, and wo to the women or 
 girls who fell into their power when out marauding. It is singular 
 10 find De Joinville remarking that the holy king was obliged " to 
 
A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE. 25 
 
 wink at the greatest liberties of his officers and men." The pic- 
 ture of a royal saint winking at lust, rapine, and murder, is not an 
 agreeable one. " The good king was told," says the faithful chroni- 
 cler, " that at a stone's throw round his own pavilion, were several 
 tents whose owners made profit by letting them out for infamous pur- 
 poses." These tents and tabernacles of iniquity were kept by the 
 king's own personal attendants, and yet the royal saint winked at 
 them ! The licentiousness was astounding, the more so as it was 
 practised by Christian knights, who were abroad on a holy purpose, 
 but who went with bloody hands, unclean thoughts, and spiritual 
 songs to rescue the Sepulchre of Christ from the unworthy keep- 
 ing of the infidel. Is it wonderful that the enterprise was ulti- 
 mately a failure ? 
 
 De Joinville himself, albeit purer of life than many of his com- 
 rades, was not above taking unmanly advantage of a foe. The 
 rule of chivalry, which directed that all should be fair in fight, 
 was never regarded by those chivalrous gentlemen when victory 
 was to be obtained by violating the law. Thus, of an affair on the 
 plains before Babylon, we find the literary swordsman complacently ' 
 recording that he "perceived a sturdy Saracen mounting his horse, 
 which was held by one of his esquires by the bridle, and while he 
 was flitting his hand on his saddle to mount, I gave him," says 
 De Joinville, " such a thrust with my spear, which I pushed as 
 far as I was able, that he fell down dead." This was a base and 
 cowardly action. There was more of the chivalrous in what fol- 
 lowed : " The esquire, seeing his lord dead, abandoned master 
 and horse ; but, watching my motions, on my return struck me 
 with his lance such a blow between my shoulders as drove me on 
 my horse's neck, and held me there so tightly that I could not 
 draw my sword, which was girthed round me. I was forced to 
 draw another sword which was at the pommel of my saddle, and 
 it was high time ; but when he saw I had my sword in my hand, 
 he withdrew his lance, which I had seized, and ran from me." 
 
 I have said that this knight who took such unfair advantage of a 
 foe, was more of a Christian nevertheless than many of his fello.ws. 
 This is illustrated by another trait highly illustrative of the princi- 
 ples which influenced those brave and pious warriors. De Joinville 
 remarks that on the eve of Shrove-tide, 1249, he saw a thing 
 
26 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 which lie "mast relate." On the vigil of that day, he tells us, 
 there died a very valiant and prudent knight, Sir Hugh de Land- 
 ricourt, a follower of De Joinville's own banner. The burial ser- 
 vice was celebrated ; but half-a-dozen of * De Joinville's knights, 
 who were present as mourners, talked so irreverently loud that the 
 priest was disturbed as he was saying mass. Our good chronicler 
 went over to them, reproved them, and informed them that " it was 
 unbecoming gentlemen thus to talk while the mass was celebrating." 
 The ungodly half-dozen, thereupon, burst into a roar of laughter, 
 and informed De Joinville, in their turn, that they were discussing 
 as to which of the six should marry the widow of the defunct Sir 
 Hugh, then lying before them on his bier! De Joinville, with 
 decency and common sense " rebuked them sharply, and said such 
 conversation was indecent and improper, for that they had too soon 
 forgotten their companion." From this circumstance De Joinville 
 tries to draw a logical inference, if not conclusion. He makes a 
 sad confusion of causes and effects, rewards and punishments, 
 practice and principle, human accidents and especial interferences 
 on the part of Heaven. For instance, after narrating the mirth 
 of the knights at the funeral of Sir Hugh, and their disputing as 
 to which of them should woo the widow, he adds: "Now it hap- 
 pened on the morrow, when the first grand battle took place, 
 although we may laugh at their follies, that of all the six not one 
 escaped death, and they remained unburied. The wives of the 
 whole six re-married ! This makes it credible that God leaves no 
 such conduct unpunished. With regard to myself I fared little 
 tetter, for I was grievously wounded in the battle of Shrove Tues- 
 day. I had besides the disorder in my legs and mouth before 
 spoken of, and such a rheum in my head it ran through my mouth 
 and nostrils. In addition I had a double fever called a quartan, 
 from which God defend us ! And with these illnesses was I con- 
 fined to my bed for half of Lent." And thus, if the married knights 
 were retributively slain for talking about the wooing of a comrade's 
 widow, so De Joinville himself was somewhat heavily afflicted for 
 having undertaken to reprove them ! I must add one more inci- 
 dent, however, to show how in the battle-field the human and 
 Christian principle was not altogether lost. 
 
 The poor priest, whom the wicked and wedded knights had 
 
A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE. 27 
 
 interrupted in the service of the mass by follies, at which De Join- 
 ville himself seems to think that men may, perhaps, be inclined to 
 laugh, became as grievously ill as De Joinville himself. " And 
 one day," says the latter, " when he was singing mass before me 
 as I lay in my bed, at the moment of the elevation of the host 
 I saw him so exceedingly weak that he was near fainting ; but 
 when I perceived he was on the point of falling to the ground, I 
 flung myself out of bed, sick as I was, and taking my coat, em- 
 braced him, and bade him be at his ease, and take courage from 
 Him whom he held in his hand. He recovered some little ; but I 
 never quitted him till he had finished the mass, which he completed, 
 and this was the last, for he never celebrated another, but died ; 
 God receive his soul !" This is a pleasanter picture of Christian 
 chivalry than any other that is given by this picturesque chronicler. 
 
 Chivalry, generally, has been more satirized and sneered at by 
 the philosophers than by any other class of men. The sages 
 stigmatize the knights as mere boasters of bravery, and in some 
 such terms as those used by Dussaute, they assert that the boasters 
 of their valor are as little to be trusted as those who boast of their 
 probity. " Defiez vous de quiconque parle toujours de sa probite 
 comme de quiconque parle toujours de bravoure." 
 
 It will not, however, do for the philosophers to sneer at their 
 martial brethren. Now that Professor Jacobi has turned from 
 grave studies for the benefit of mankind, to the making of infernal 
 machines for the destruction of brave and helpless men, at a dis- 
 tance, that very unsuccessful but would-be homicide has, as far as 
 he himself is concerned, reduced science to a lower level than that 
 occupied by men whose trade is arms. But this is not the first 
 time that philosophers have mingled in martial matters. The 
 very war which has been begun by the bad ambition of Russia, 
 may be traced to the evil officiousness of no less a philosopher than 
 Leibnitz. It was this celebrated man who first instigated a Eu- 
 ropean monarch to seize upon a certain portion of the Turkish 
 dominion, whereby to secure an all but universal supremacy. 
 
 The monarch was Louis XIV., to whom Leibnitz addressed 
 himself, in a memorial, as to the wisest of sovereigns, most worthy 
 to have imparted to him a project at once the most holy, the most 
 just, and the most easy of accomplishment. Success, adds the 
 
28 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 philosopher, would secure to France the empire of the seas and 
 of commerce, and make the French king the supreme arbiter of 
 Christendom. Leibnitz at once names Egypt as the place to be 
 seized upon ; and after hinting what was necessary, by calling his 
 majesty a '''miracle of secresy," he alludes to further achievements . 
 by stating of the one in question, that it would cover his name 
 with an immortal glory, for having cleared, whether for himself 
 or his descendants, "the route for exploits similar to those of 
 Alexander." 
 
 There is no country in the memorialist's opinion the conquest 
 of which deserves so much to be attempted. As to any provoca- 
 tion on the part of the Turkish sovereign of Egypt, he does not 
 pause to advise the king even to feign having received cause of 
 offence. The philosopher goes through a resume of the history 
 of Egypt, and the successive conquests that had been made of, as 
 well as attempts against it, to prove that its possession was account- 
 ed of importance in all times ; and he adds that its Turkish master 
 was just then in such debility that France could not desire a more 
 propitious opportunity for invasion. This argument shows that 
 when the Czar Nicholas touched upon this nefarious subject, he 
 not only was ready to rob this same " sick man," the Turk, but he 
 stole his arguments whereby to illustrate his opinions, and to prove 
 that his sentiments were well-founded. 
 
 " By a single fortunate blow," says Leibnitz, " empires may be in 
 an instant overthrown and founded. In such wars are found the 
 elements of high power and of an exalted glory." It is unneces- 
 sary to repeat all the seductive terms which Leibnitz employs to 
 induce Louis XIY. to set Ins chivalry in motion against the Turk- 
 ish power. Egypt he calls " the eye of countries, the mother of 
 grain, the seat of commerce." He hints that Muscovy was even 
 then ready to take advantage of any circumstance that might fa- 
 cilitate her way to the conquest of Turkey. The conquest of 
 Egypt then was of double importance to France. Possessing 
 that, France would be mistress of the Mediterranean, of a great 
 part of Africa and Asia, and " the king of France could then, by 
 incontestable right, and with the consent of the Pope, assume the 
 title of Emperor of the East." A further bait held out is, that in 
 such a position he could " hold the pontiffs much more in his power 
 
A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE. 29 
 
 than if they resided at Avignon." He sums up by saying that 
 there would be on the part of the human race, " an everlasting 
 reverence for the memory of the great king to whom so many 
 miracles were due !" " With the exception of the philosopher's 
 stone," finally remarks the philosopher, " I know nothing that can 
 be imagined of more importance than the conquest of Egypt." 
 
 Leibnitz enters largely into the means to be employed, in order 
 to insure success ; among them is a good share of mendacity ; and 
 it must be acknowledged that the spirit of the memorial and its 
 objects, touching not Egypt alone, but the Turkish empire gene- 
 rally, had been well pondered over by the Czar before he made 
 that felonious attempt in which he failed to find a confederate. 
 
 The original of the memorial, which is supposed to have been 
 presented to Louis XIV. just previous to his invasion of Holland 
 — and, as some say, more with the intention of diverting the king 
 from his attack on that country, than with any more definite 
 object — was preserved in the archives of Versailles till the period 
 of the great revolution. A copy in the handwriting of Leibnitz 
 was, however, preserved in the Library at Hanover. Its contents 
 were without doubt known to Napoleon when he was meditating 
 that Egyptian conquest which Leibnitz pronounced to be so easy 
 of accomplishment ; a copy, made at the instance of Marshal Mor- 
 tier for the Royal Library in Paris, is now in that collection. 
 
 The suggestion of Leibnitz, that the seat, if not of universal 
 monarchy, at least of the mastership of Christendom, was in the 
 Turkish dominions, has never been forgotten by Russia ; and it is 
 very possible that some of its seductive argument may have in- 
 fluenced the Czar before he impelled his troops into that war, 
 which showed that Russia, with all its boasted power, could neither 
 take Silistria nor keep Sebastopol. 
 
 But in this fragmentary prologue, which began with Lingard 
 and ends with Leibnitz, we have rambled over wide ground. 
 Let us become more orderly, and look at those who were to be 
 made knights. 
 
30 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 THE TRAINING OF PAGES. 
 
 " What callest thou Page ? What is its humor ? 
 Sir ; he is Nobilis ephebus, and 
 Puer regius, student of Knighthood, 
 Breaking hearts and hoping to break lances." — Old Play. 
 
 I have in another chapter noticed the circumstance of knight- 
 hood conferred on an Irish prince, at so early an age as seven 
 years. This was the age at which, in less precocious England, 
 noble youths entered wealthy knights' families as pages, to learn 
 obedience, to be instructed in the use of weapons, and to acquire 
 a graceful habit of tending on ladies. The poor nobility, especially, 
 found their account in this system, which gave a gratuitous educa- 
 tion to their sons, in return for services which were not considered 
 humiliating or dishonorable. These boys served seven years as 
 pages, or varlets — sometimes very impudent varlets — and at 
 fourteen might be regular esquires, and tend their masters where 
 hard blows were dealt and taken — for which encounters they 
 " riveted with a sigh the armor they were forbidden to wear." 
 
 Neither pages, varlets, nor household, could be said to have been 
 always as roystering as modern romancers have depicted them. 
 There was at least exceptions to the rule — if there was a rule 
 of roystering. Occasionally, the lads were not indifferently taught 
 before they left their own homes. That is, not indifferently taught 
 for the peculiar life they were about to lead. Even the Borgias, 
 infamous as the name has become through inexorable historians 
 and popular operas, were at one time eminently respectable and 
 exemplarily religious. Thus in the household of the Duke of 
 Gandia, young Francis Borgia, his son, passed his time " among 
 
THE TRAINING OF PAGES, 31 
 
 the domestics in wonderful innocence and piety." It was the only 
 season of Ins life, however, so passed. Marchangy asserts that 
 the pages of the middle ages were often little saints ; but this 
 could hardly have been the case since " espiegle comme un page," 
 " hardi comme un page," and other illustrative sayings have sur- 
 vived even the era of pagedom. Indeed, if we may believe the 
 minstrels, and they were often as truth-telling as the annalist, the 
 pages were now and then even more knowing and audacious than 
 their masters. When the Count Ory was in love with the young 
 Abbess of Farmoutier, he had recourse to his page for counsel. 
 
 "Hola ! mem page, venez me conseiller, 
 L' amour me berce, je ne puis sommeiller ; 
 Comment me prendre pour dans ce couvent entrer?" 
 
 How ready was the ecstatic young scamp with his reply : — 
 
 " Sire il faut prendre quatorze chevaliers, 
 Et tous en nonnes il vous les faut habiller, 
 Puis, a nuit close, a la porte il faut heurter." 
 
 What came of this advice, the song tells in very joyous terms, for 
 which the reader may be referred to that grand collection the 
 " Chants et Chansons de la France." 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. Kenelm Digby, who is, be it said in 
 passing, a painter of pages, looking at his object through pink- 
 colored glasses, thus writes of these young gentlemen, in his 
 '-Mores Catholici." 
 
 '•' Truly beautiful does the fidelity of chivalrous youth appear 
 in the page of history or romance. Every master of a family in 
 the middle ages had some young man in his service who would 
 have rejoiced to shed the last drop of his blood to save him, and 
 who, like Jonathan's armor-bearer, would have replied to his sum- 
 mons : ' Fac omnia quae placent animo tuo ; perge quo cupis ; et 
 ero tecum ubicumque volueris.' When Gyron le Courtois re- 
 solved to proceed on the adventure of the Passage perilleux, we 
 read that the valet, on hearing the frankness and courtesy with 
 which his lord spoke to him, began to weep abundantly, and said, 
 all in tears, ' Sire, know that my heart tells me that sooth, if you 
 proceed further, you will never return ; that you will either perish 
 there, or you will remain in prison; but, nevertheless, nothing 
 
 < 
 
32 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 shall prevent me going with jou. Better die with you, if it be 
 God's will, than leave you in such guise to save my own life ;' 
 and so saying, he stepped forward and said, ' Sire, since you will 
 not return according to my advice, I will not leave you this time, 
 come to me what may.' Authority in the houses of the middle 
 ages," adds Mr. Digby, " was always venerable. The very term 
 seneschal is supposed to ljave implied l old knight,' so that, as with 
 the Greeks, the word signifying ' to honor,' and to ' pay respect,' 
 was derived immediately from that which denoted old age, irps*fie6u 
 being thus used in the first line of the Eumenides. Even to those 
 who were merely attached by the bonds of friendship or hospitality, 
 the same lessons and admonitions were considered due. John 
 Francis Picus of Mirandola mentions his uncle's custom of fre- 
 quently admonishing his friends, and exhorting them to a holy life. 
 ' I knew a man,' he says, ' who once spoke with him on the subject 
 of manners, and who was so much moved by only two words from 
 him, which alluded to the death of Christ, as the motive for avoid- 
 ing sin, that from that hour, he renounced the ways of vice, and 
 reformed his whole life and manner.' ',' 
 
 "We smile to find Mr. Digby mentioning the carving of angels 
 in stone over the castle-gates, as at Vincennes, as a proof that 
 the pages who loitered about there were little saints. But we 
 read with more interest, that " the Sieur de Ligny led Bayard 
 home with him, and in the evening preached to him as if he had 
 been his own son, recommending him to have heaven always be- 
 fore his eyes." This is good, and that it had its effect on Bayard, 
 we all know; nevertheless that chevalier himself was far from 
 perfect. 
 
 With regard to the derivation of Seneschal as noticed above, 
 we may observe that it implies " old man of skill." Another word 
 connected with arms is " Marshal," which is derived from Mar, 
 " a horse," and Schalk, " skilful," one knowing in horses ; hence 
 "Marechal ferrant," as assumed by French farriers. Schalk, 
 however, I have seen interpreted as meaning "servant." Earl 
 Marshal was, originally, the knight who looked after the royal 
 horses and stables, and all thereto belonging. 
 
 But to return to the subject of education. If all the sons ot 
 noblemen, in former days, were as well off for gentle teachers as 
 
THE TRAINING OF PAGES. 33 
 
 old historians and authors describe them to have been, they un- 
 doubtedly had a great advantage over some of their descendants 
 of the present day. In illustration of this fact it is only necessary 
 to point to the sermons recently delivered by a reverend pedagogue 
 to the boys who have the affliction of possessing him as head- 
 master. It is impossible to read some of these whipping sermons, 
 without a feeling of intense disgust. Flagellation is there hinted 
 at, mentioned, menaced, caressed as it were, as if in the very idea 
 there was a sort of delight. The worst passage of all is where the 
 amiable master tells his youthful hearers that they are noble by 
 birth, that the greatest humiliation to a noble person is the inflic- 
 tion of a blow, and that nevertheless, he, the absolute master, may 
 have to flog many of them. How the young people over whom 
 he rules, must love such an instructor ! The circumstance reminds 
 me of the late Mr. Ducrow, who was once teaching a boy to go 
 through a difficult act of horsemanship, in the character of a page. 
 The boy was timid, and his great master applied the whip to him 
 unmercifully. Mr. Joseph Grimaldi was standing by, and looked 
 very serious, considering his vocation. "You see," remarked 
 Ducrow to Joey, " that it is quite necessary to make an impression 
 on these young fellows." — "Very likely," answered Grimaldi, 
 dryly, "but it can hardly be necessary to make the whacks so 
 hard !" 
 
 The discipline to which pages were subjected in the houses of 
 knights and noblemen, does not appear to have been at all of a 
 severe character. Beyond listening to precept from the chaplain, 
 heeding the behests of their master, and performing pleasant duties 
 about their mistress, they seem to have been left pretty much to 
 themselves, and to have had, altogether, a pleasant time of it. The 
 poor scholars had by far a harder life than your " Sir page." And 
 this stern discipline held over the pale student continued down to 
 a very recent, that is, a comparatively recent period. In Neville's 
 play of " The Poor Scholar," written in 1662, but never acted, the 
 character of student-life at college is well illustrated. The scene 
 lies at the university, where Eugenes, jun., albeit he is called " the 
 poor scholar," is nephew of Eugenes, sen., who is president of a 
 college. Nephew and uncle are at feud, and the man in authority 
 imprisons his young kinsman, who contrives to escape from du- 
 
 3 
 
34 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 ranee vile, and to marry a maiden called Morplie. The fun of 
 the marriage is, that the young couple disguise themselves as coun- 
 try lad and lass, and the reverend Eugenes, sen., unconsciously 
 couples a pair whom he would fain have kept apart. There are 
 two other university marriages as waggishly contrived ; and when 
 the ceremonies are concluded, one of the newly-married students, 
 bold as any page, impudently remarks to the duped president, 
 " Our names are out of the butteries, and our persons out of your 
 dominions." The phrase shows that, in the olden time, an " in- 
 genuus puer" at Oxford, if he were desirous of escaping censure, 
 had only to take his name off the books. But there were worse 
 penalties than mere censure. The author of " The Poor Scholar" 
 makes frequent allusion to the whipping of undergraduates, 
 stretched on a barrel, in the buttery. There was long an accred- 
 ited tradition that Milton had been thus degraded. In Neville's 
 play, one of the young Benedicks, prematurely married, remarks, 
 " Had I been once in the butteries, they'd have their rods about 
 me." To this remark Eugenes, jun., adds another in reference to 
 his uncle the president, " He would have made thee ride on a bar- 
 rel, and made you show your fat cheeks." But it is clear that 
 even this terrible penalty could be avoided by young gentlemen, 
 if they had their wits about them ; for the fearless Aphobos makes 
 boast, " My name is cut out of the college butteries, and I have 
 now no title to the mounting a barrel." 
 
 Young scions of noble houses, in the present time, have to en- 
 dure more harsh discipline than is commonly imagined. They 
 are treated rather like the buttery undergraduates of former days, 
 than the pages who, in ancient castles, learned the use of arms, 
 served the Chatellaine, and invariably fell in love with the daugh- 
 ters. They who doubt this fact have only to read those Whipping 
 Sermons to which I have referred. Such discourses, in days of 
 old, to a body of young pages, would probably have cost the 
 preacher more than he cared to lose. In these days, such sermons 
 can hardly have won affection for their author. The latter, no 
 doubt, honestly thought he was in possession of a vigorously salu- 
 brious principle ; but there is something ignoble both in the dis- 
 cipline boasted of, and especially in the laying down the irresistible 
 fact to young gentlemen that a blow was the worst offence that 
 
THE TRAINING OF PAGES. 35 
 
 could be inflicted on persons of their class, but that he could and 
 would commit such assault upon them, and that gentle and noble 
 as they were, they dared not resent it !" 
 
 The pages of old time occasionally met with dreadful harsh 
 treatment from their chivalrous master. The most chivalrous of 
 these Christian knights could often act cowardly and unchristian- 
 like. I may cite, as an instance, the case of the great and warlike 
 Duke of Burgundy, on his defeat at Muret. He was hemmed in 
 between ferocious enemies and the deep lake. As the lesser of 
 two evils, he plunged into the latter, and his young page leaped 
 upon the crupper as the Duke's horse took the water. The stout 
 steed bore his double burden across, a breadth of two miles, not 
 without difficulty, yet safely. The Duke was, perhaps, too alarmed 
 himself, at first, to know that the page was hanging on behind ; 
 but when the panting horse reached the opposite shore, sovereign 
 Burgundy was so wroth at the idea that the boy, by clinging to 
 his steed, had put the life of the Duke in peril, that he turned 
 upon him and poignarded the poor lad upon the beach. Lassels, 
 who tells the story, very aptly concludes it with the scornful yet 
 serious ejaculation, " Poor Prince ! thou mightest have given an- 
 other offering of thanksgiving to God for thy escape, than this !" 
 But " Burgundy" was rarely gracious or humane. " Carolus 
 Pugnax," says Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, "made 
 Henry Holland, late Duke of Exeter, exiled, run after his horse, 
 like a lackey, and would take no notice of him." This was the 
 English peer who was reduced to beg his way in the cities of 
 Flanders. 
 
 Of pages generally, we shall have yet to speak incidentally — 
 meanwhile, let us glance at their masters at home. 
 
36 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DATS. 
 
 KNIGHTS AT HOME. 
 
 " Entrez Messieurs ; jouissez-vous de mon coin-de-feu. Me voila, chez 
 moi !" — Arlequin a St. Germains. 
 
 Ritter Eric, of Lansfeldt, remarked, that next to a battle he 
 dearly loved a banquet. We will, therefore, commence the 
 " Knight at Home," by showing him at table. Therewith, we 
 may observe, that the Knights of the Round Table appear gener- 
 ally to have had very solid fare before them. King Arthur — 
 who is the reputed founder of this society, and who invented the 
 table in order that when all his knights were seated none could 
 claim precedency over the others — is traditionally declared to 
 have been the first man who ever sat down to a whole roasted ox. 
 Mr. Bickerstaff, in the " Tatler," says that " this was certainly the 
 best way to preserve the gravy ;" and it is further added, that " he 
 and. his knights set about the ox at his round table, and usually 
 consumed it to the very bones before they would enter upon any 
 debate of moment." 
 
 They had better fare than the knights-errant, who 
 
 " as some think, 
 Of old, did neither eat nor drink, 
 Because when thorough deserts vast, 
 And regions desolate they passed, 
 "Where belly-timber above ground, 
 Or under, was not to be found, 
 Unless they grazed, there's not one word 
 Of their provision on record : 
 Which made some confidently write, 
 They had no stomachs but to fight/' 
 
 This, however, is only one poet's view of the dietary of the er- 
 rant gentlemen of old. Pope is much nearer truth when he says, 
 that — 
 
KNIGHTS AT HOME. 37 
 
 " In days of old our fathers went to war, 
 Expecting sturdy blows and scanty fare, 
 Their beef they often in their morion stewed, 
 And in their basket-hilt their beverage brewed." 
 
 — that basket-hilt of which it is so well said in Hudibras, that — 
 
 " it would hold broth, 
 And serve for fight and dinner both." 
 
 The lords and chivalric gentlemen who fared so well and fought 
 so stoutly, were not always of the gentlest humor at home. It has 
 been observed that Piedmontese society long bore traces of the 
 chivalric age. An exemplification is afforded us in Gallenga's 
 History of Piedmont. It will serve to show how absolute a master 
 a powerful knight and noble was in his own house. Thus, from 
 Gallenga we learn that Antonio Grimaldi, a nobleman of Chieri, 
 had become convinced of the faithlessness of his wife. He com- 
 pelled her to hang up with her own hand her paramour to the 
 ceiling of her chamber ; then he had the chamber walled up, doors 
 and windows, and only allowed the wretched woman as much air 
 and light, and administered with his own hand as much food and 
 drink, as would indefinitely prolong her agony. And so he watched 
 her, and tended her with all that solicitude which hatred can sug- 
 gest as well as love, and left her to grope alone in that blind soli- 
 tude, with the mute testimony of her guilt — a ghastly object on 
 which her aching eyes were riveted, day by day, night after night, 
 till it had passed through every loathsome stage of decomposition. 
 This man was surely worse in his vengeance than that Sir Giles 
 de Laval, who has come down to us under the name of Blue- 
 Beard. 
 
 This celebrated personage, famous by his pseudonym, was not 
 less so in his own proper person. There was not a braver knight 
 in France, during the reigns of Charles VI. and VII., than this 
 Marquis de Laval, Marshal of France. The English feared him 
 almost as much as they did the Pucelle. The household of tins 
 brave gentleman was, however, a hell upon earth ; and licentious- 
 ness, blasphemy, attempts at sorcery, and, more than attempts at, 
 very successful realizations of, murder were the kittle foibles of 
 this man of many wives. He excelled the most extravagant mon- 
 
38 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 archs in his boundless profusion, and in the barbaric splendor of 
 his court or house : the latter was thronged with ladies of very 
 light manners, players, mountebanks, pretended magicians, and as 
 many cooks as Julian found in the palace of his predecessor at 
 Constantinople. There were two hundred saddle-horses in his 
 stable, and he had a greater variety of dogs than could now be 
 found at any score of " fanciers" of that article. He employed the 
 magicians for a double purpose. They undertook to discover 
 treasures for his use, and pretty handmaids to tend on his illustri- 
 ous person, or otherwise amuse him by the display of their accom- 
 plishments. Common report said that these young persons were 
 slain after a while, their blood being of much profit in makino- in- 
 cantations, the object of which was the discovery of gold. Much 
 exaggeration magnified his misdeeds, which were atrocious enough 
 in their plain, unvarnished infamy. At length justice overtook 
 this monster. She did not lay hold of him for his crimes against 
 society, but for a peccadillo which offended the Duke of Brittany. 
 Giles de Laval, for this offence, was burnt at Nantes, after being 
 strangled — such mercy having been vouchsafed to him, because 
 he was a gallant knight and gentleman, and of course was not to 
 be burnt alive like any petty villain of peasant degree. He had 
 a moment of weakness at last, and just previous to the rope being 
 tightened round his neck, he publicly declared that he should never 
 have come to that pass, nor have committed so many excesses, 
 had it not been for his wretched education. Thus are men, shrewd 
 enough to drive bargains, and able to discern between virtue and 
 vice, ever ready, when retribution falls on them at the scaffold, to 
 accuse their father, mother, schoolmaster, or spiritual pastor. Few 
 are like the knight of the road, who, previous to the cart sliding 
 from under him, at Tyburn, remarked that he had the satisfaction, 
 at least, of knowing that the position he had attained in society 
 was owing entirely to himself. " May I be hanged," said he, " if 
 that isn't the fact." The finisher of the law did not stop to argue 
 the question with him, but, on cutting him down, remarked, with 
 the gravity of a cardinal before breakfast, that the gentleman had 
 wronged the devil and the ladies, in attributing his greatness so 
 exclusively to hfe own exertions. 
 
 I have said that perhaps Blue-Beard's little foibles have been 
 
 
KNIGHTS AT HOME. 59 
 
 exaggerated ; but, on reflection, I am not sure that this pleasant 
 hypothesis can be sustained. De Laval, of whom more than I 
 have told may be found in Mezeray, was not worse than the Land- 
 vogt Hugenbach, who makes so terrible a figure in Barante's 
 " Dukes of Burgundy." The Landvogt, we are told by the last- 
 named historian, cared no more for heaven than he did for any- 
 body on earth. He was accustomed to say that being perfectly 
 sure of going to the devil, he would take especial care to deny 
 himself no gratification that he could possibly desire. There was, 
 accordingly, no sort of wild fancy to which he did not surrender 
 himself. He was a fiendish corruptor of virtue, employing money, 
 menaces, or brutal violence, to accomplish his ends. Neither cot- 
 tage nor convent, citizen's hearth nor noble's chateau, was secure 
 from Ins invasion and atrocity. He was terribly hated, terribly 
 feared — but then Sir Landvogt Hugenbach gave splendid dinners, 
 and every family round went to them, while they detested the 
 giver. 
 
 He was remarkably facetious on these occasions, sometimes 
 ferociously so. For instance, Barante records of him, that at one 
 of his pleasant soirees he sent away the husbands into a room 
 apart, and kept the wives together in his grand saloon. These, 
 he and his myrmidons despoiled entirely of their dresses ; after 
 which, having flung a covering over the head of each lady, who 
 dared not, for her life, resist, the amiable host called in the hus- 
 bands one by one, and bade each select his own wife. If the hus- 
 band made a mistake, he was immediately seized and flung head- 
 long down the staircase. The Landvogt made no more scruple 
 about it than Lord Ernest Yane when he served the Windsor 
 manager after something of the same fashion. The husbands who 
 guessed rightly were conducted to the sideboard to receive con- 
 gratulations, and drink various flasks of wine thereupon. But the 
 amount of wine forced upon each unhappy wretch was so immense, 
 that in a short time he was as near death as the mangled hus- 
 bands, who were lying in a senseless heap at the foot of the stair- 
 case. 
 
 They who would like to learn further of this respectable indi- 
 vidual, are referred to the pages of Barante. They will find there 
 that this knight and servant of the Duke of Burgundy was more 
 
40 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 like an incarnation of the devil than aught besides. His career 
 was frightful for its stupendous cruelty and crime ; but it ended 
 on the scaffold, nevertheless. His behavior there was like that 
 of a saint who felt a little of the human infirmity of irritability at 
 being treated as a very wicked personage by the extremely blind 
 justice of men. So edifying was this chivalrous scoundrel, that 
 the populace fairly took him for the saint he figured to be ; and 
 long after his death, crowds flocked to his tomb to pray for his 
 mediation between them and God. 
 
 The rough jokes of the Landvogt remind me of a much greater 
 man than he — Gaston de Foix, in whose earlier times there was 
 no lack of rough jokes, too. The portrait of Gaston, with his 
 page helping to buckle on his armor, by Giorgione da Castel 
 Franco, is doubtless known to most of my readers — through the 
 engraving, if not the original. It was formerly the property of 
 the Duke of Orleans ; but came, many years ago, into the posses- 
 sion, by purchase, of Lord Carlisle. The expression of the page 
 or young squire who is helping to adjust Gaston's armor is ad- 
 mirably rendered. That of the hero gives, perhaps, too old a look 
 to a knight who is known to have died young. 
 
 This Gaston was a nephew of Louis XII. His titles were 
 Duke of Nemours and Count d'Etampes. He was educated by 
 his mother, the sister of King Louis. She exulted in Gaston as 
 one who was peculiarly her own work. " Considering," she says, 
 " how honor became her son, she was pleased to let him seek dan- 
 ger where he was likely to find fame." His career was splendid, 
 but proportionally brief. He purchased imperishable renown, and 
 a glorious death, in Italy. He gained the victory of Ravenna, 
 at the cost of his life ; after which event, fortune abandoned the 
 standard of Louis ; and Maximilian Sforza recovered the Milanese 
 territories of his father, Ludovic. This was early in the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 But it is of another Gaston de Foix that I have to speak. I 
 have given precedence to one bearer of the name, because he was 
 the worthier man ; but the earlier hero will afford us better illus- 
 trations of the home-life of the noble knights who were sovereigns 
 within their own districts. Froissart makes honorable mention of 
 him in his " Chronicle." He was Count de Foix, and kept court 
 
KNIGHTS AT HOME. 41 
 
 at Ortez, in the south of France. There assembled belted knights 
 and aspiring 'squires, majestic matrons and dainty damsels. 
 When the Count was not on a war-path, his house was a scene of 
 great gayety. The jingle of spurs, clash of swords, tramp of iron 
 heels, virelays sung by men-at-arms, love-songs hummed by au- 
 dacious pages, and romances entoned to the lyre by minstrels who 
 were masters in the art — these, with courtly feasts and stately 
 dances, made of the castle at Ortez anything but a dull residence. 
 Hawking and hunting seem to have been " my very good Erie's" 
 favorite diversion. He was not so much master of his passions as 
 he was of his retainers ; and few people thought the worse of him 
 simply because he murdered his cousin for refusing to betray 
 his trust, and cut the throat of the only legitimate son of the 
 Earl. 
 
 We may form some idea of the practical jests of those days, 
 from an anecdote told by Froissart. Gaston de Foix had com- 
 plained, one cold day, of the scanty fire which his retainers kept 
 up in the great gallery. Whereupon one of the knights descended 
 to the court-yard, where stood several asses laden with wood. One 
 of them he seized, wood and ass together, and staggering up-stairs 
 into the gallery, flung the whole, the ass heels uppermost, on to 
 the fire. " Whereof," says Froissart, " the Earl of Foix had great 
 joy, and so had all they that were there, and had marvel of his 
 strength, how he alone came up all the stairs with the ass and the 
 wood on his neck." 
 
 Gaston was but a lazy knight. It was high noon, Froissart 
 tells us, before he rose from his bed. He supped at midnight ; 
 and when he issued from his chamber to proceed to the hall where 
 supper was laid, twelve torches were carried before him, and 
 these were held at his table " by twelve varlets" during the time 
 that supper lasted. The Earl sat alone, and none of the knights 
 or squires who crowded round the other tables dared to speak a 
 word to him unless the great man previously addressed him. The 
 supper then must have been a dull affair. 
 
 The treasurer of the Collegiate Church of Chimay relates in a 
 very delicate manner how Gaston came to murder his little son. 
 Gaston's wife was living apart from her husband, at the court of 
 her brother, the King of Navarre, and the " little son" in question 
 
42 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 was residing there on a visit to his mother. As he was on the 
 point of returning, the king of Navarre gave him a powder, which 
 he directed the boy to administer to his father, telling him that it 
 was a love-powder, and would bring back his father's affection for 
 the mother. The innocent boy took the powder, which was in 
 fact poison ; and a night or two after his return to Ortez, an ille- 
 gitimate son of Gaston found it in the boy's clothes. The base- 
 born lad informed against his brother, and when Gaston had given 
 the powder to a dog, which immediately died, he could scarcely be 
 kept from poniarding his son upon the spot. The poor child 
 was flung into a dungeon, where, between terror and despair, he 
 refused to take any food. Upon being told of this, the earl en- 
 tered the chamber in which the boy was confined, " he had at the 
 same time a little knife in his hand, to pare withal his nails .... 
 In great displeasure he thrust his hand at his son's throat, and the 
 point of his knife a little entered into his throat into a certain vein ; 
 and the earl said, ' Ah, traitor, why dost thou not eat thy meat ?' 
 and therewith the earl departed without any more doing or saying." 
 Never was brutal murder more daintily glozed over, but Froissart 
 is so afraid that he may not have sufficiently impressed you with 
 a conviction of its being a little accident, that he goes on to say 
 " The child was abashed, and afraid of the coming of his father, 
 and was also feeble of fasting, and the point of the knife a little 
 entered into his throat, into a certain vein of his throat ; and so 
 [he] fell down suddenly and died /" 
 
 The rascally sire was as jolly after the deed as before it ; but 
 he too one day " fell down suddenly and died." He had over- 
 heated himself with hunting, and in that condition bathed in cold 
 water as soon as he reached home. The description of the whole 
 of this domestic scene is one of the most graphic in Froissart, but 
 it is too long for quotation. It must suffice that the vast posses- 
 sions of the count fell into the hands of that villanous illegitimate 
 son, Sir Jenbayne de Foix. The latter was one of the six knights 
 who, with Charles VI., entered a ball-room disguised as satyrs, 
 and fast chained together. Some one, who is supposed to have 
 owed no good- will to the king, flung a torch into the group. Their 
 inflammable dresses immediately caught fire, and Sir Jenbayne de 
 
KNIGHTS AT HOME. 43 
 
 Foix was one of those who was burned to death. The king him- 
 self, as is well known, had a very narrow escape. 
 
 Perhaps one of the chief home pleasures enjoyed by knights 
 when not engaged in war, was the pleasure of the chase. Idle 
 country gentlemen now resemble their chivalrous ancestors in this 
 respect, and for want of or distaste for other vocations, spend three 
 fourths of their rural time in the fields. In the old days too, as 
 ever, there were clerical gentlemen very much addicted to hunting 
 and moreover not less so to trespassing. These were not reverend 
 rectors on their own thorough-breds, or curates on borrowed 
 ponies, but dignified prelates — even archbishops. One of the 
 latter, Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, in the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century, presumed to hunt without permission, on the 
 grounds of a young knight, the Earl of Arundel, a minor. On 
 the day the Earl came of age, he issued a prohibition against the 
 archiepiscopal trespasser, and the latter in return snapped his 
 fingers at the earl, and declared that his way was as legally open 
 to any chase as it was free into any church. Accordingly, the 
 right reverend gentleman issued forth as usual, with hounds and 
 horses, and a " numerous meet" of clerical friends and other fol- 
 lowers, glad to hunt in such company. Their sport, however, was 
 spoiled by the retainers of the young earl. These, in obedience 
 to their master's orders, called off the dogs, unstopped the earths, 
 warned off the riders, and laughed at the ecclesiastical thunder of 
 the prelate, flung at them in open field. Edmund, finding it im- 
 possible to overcome the opposition of the men, addressed himself 
 to the master, summarily devoting him ad inferos for daring to 
 interfere with the prelatic pastimes. Nothing daunted, the young 
 earl, who would gladly have permitted the archbishop to hunt in 
 his company, whenever so disposed, but who would not allow the 
 head of the church in England to act in the woods of Arundel as 
 as if he were also lord of the land, made appeal to the only com- 
 petent court — that of the Pope. The contending parties went 
 over and pleaded their most respective causes personally; the 
 earl with calmness, as feeling that he had right on his side ; Ed- 
 mund with easy arrogance, springing from a conviction that the 
 Pontiff would not give a layman a triumph over a priest. The 
 archbishop, however, was mistaken. He not only lost his cause, 
 
44 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 but he was condemned in the expenses ; and if any one thinks 
 that this decree checked him in trespassing, such an idea would 
 show that the holder of it knew little of the spirit which moved 
 prelates fond of hunting. The archbishop became the most con- 
 firmed poacher in the country ; and if he did not spoil the knight's 
 sport by riding in advance of the hounds with a red herring, he 
 had resort to means as efficacious for marring the pleasures of 
 others in the chase. He affected, too, to look down upon the earl 
 as one inferior to him in degree, and when they encountered at 
 court, the prelate exhibited no more eourtesy toward the gallant 
 knight than was manifested by Lord Cowley in Paris toward the 
 English Exhibition Commissioners, when the mere men of intellect 
 were kept at what the peer thought a proper distance by the mere 
 men of rank. 
 
 There is, however, no lack of instances of young knights them- 
 selves being brought up in arrogance and wilfulness. This sort 
 of education lasted longer, perhaps, in France than elsewhere. 
 As late as the last century this instruction prevailed, particularly 
 where the pupil was intended for the army. Thus, the rearing 
 of the little Vidame d' Amiens affords us an illustration. He was 
 awkward and obstinate, but he might have been cured of both 
 defects, had his mother been permitted to have some voice in his 
 education. She was the last to be consulted, or rather, was never 
 consulted at all. The more the little man was arrogant, the more 
 delighted were his relatives with such manifestation of his spirit ; 
 and one day, when he dealt to his aunt, the Marquise de Belliere 
 Plessis, a box of the ear which sent the old lady staggering, her 
 only remark was, " My dear, you should never strike me with the 
 left hand." The courteous Vidame mortally hated his tutor, and 
 expressed such a desire to kill him, that the pedagogue was asked 
 to allow the little savage to believe that he had accomplished the 
 desired act of homicide. Accordingly, a light musket was placed 
 in the boy's hands, from winch the ball had been drawn, unknown 
 to him, and with this, coming suddenly upon his instructor, who 
 feigned the surprise he did not feel, the Vidame discharged the 
 piece full at the breast of his monitor and friend. The servile 
 sage pretended to be mortally wounded, and acted death upon the 
 polished floor. He was quietly got rid of, and a pension of four 
 
KNIGHTS AT HOME. 45 
 
 hundred francs, just sixteen pounds a year, rewarded his stupid 
 servility. The little chevalier was as proud as Fighting Fitzgerald 
 of having, as he supposed, " killed his man." 
 
 Let us return to earlier times for illustrations of the knight at 
 home, and also abroad. There is no lack of such illustration in 
 the adventures of Fulke Fitzwarren. Fulke was one of the 
 outlawed barons of the reign of King John. In his youth, he 
 was brought up with the four sons of King Henry ; he was much 
 beloved by them all, except John. " It happened that John and 
 Fulke were sitting all alone in a chamber playing at chess ; and 
 John took the chess-board, and struck Fulke with a great blow. 
 Fulke felt himself hurt, raised his foot and struck John in the 
 middle of the stomach ; and his head flew against the wall, and he 
 became all weak, and fainted. Fulke was in consternation ; but 
 he was glad that there was nobody in the chamber but they two, 
 and he rubbed John's ears, who recovered from his fainting fit, 
 and went to the king his father, and made a great complaint. 
 * Hold your tongue, wretch,' said the king, ' you are always quar- 
 relling. If Fulke did anything but good to you, it must have 
 been by your own desert ;' and he called his master, and made him 
 beat him finely and well for complaining. John was much enraged 
 against Fulke, so that he could never afterward love him heartily." 
 
 The above, as has been remarked, evinces how little respect 
 there was in those early times for royal authority and the doctrine 
 of non-resistance. But it may be observed, that even in these 
 more polite times, were the heir-apparent to strike a playfellow, 
 his royal highness would probably meet in return with as ready- 
 handed, if not quite so rough a correction as was inflicted upon 
 John. The latter could not forgive a bold companion of his boy- 
 hood, as James I. did, in subsequent times, with regard to "Jamie 
 Slates." On the contrary, when John became king, he plotted 
 with as unscrupulous a person as himself, to deprive Fulke of his 
 estate. The conversation between the king and his confederate, 
 Moris de Powis, was overheard ; and what came of it is thus told 
 in the history of Fulke Fitzwarren, as edited by Thomas Wright 
 Esq., for the Warton Club : — 
 
 " There was close by a knight who had heard all the conversa- 
 tion between the king and Moris, and he went in haste to Sir 
 
46 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR HAYS. 
 
 Fulke, and told him that the king was about to confirm by his 
 charter, to Sir Moris, the lands to which he had right. Fulke 
 and his four brothers came before the king, and prayed that they 
 might have the common law and the lands to which they had claim 
 and right, as the inheritance of Fulke ; and they prayed that the 
 king would receive from them a hundred pounds, on condition that 
 he should grant them the award of his court of gain and loss. 
 The king told them that what he had granted to Sir Moris, he 
 would hold to it whoever might be offended or who not. At length 
 Sir Moris spoke to Sir Fulke, and said, ' Sir Knight, you are a 
 great fool to challenge my lands ; if you say that you have a right 
 to White-Town, you he ; and if we were not in the king's presence 
 I would have proved it on your body.' Sir William, Fulke's 
 brother, without a word more, sprang forward and struck Sir Moris 
 with his fist in the middle of his face, that it became all bloody ; 
 knights interfered that no more hurt was done; then said Sir 
 Fulke to the king : ' Sir King, you are my liege-lord, and to you 
 was I bound by fealty, as long as I was in your service, and as 
 long as I held the lands of you ; and you ought to maintain me in 
 right, and you fail me in right and common law ; and never was 
 he good king who denied his frank tenants law in his court ; where- 
 fore I return you your homages :' and with this word, he departed 
 from the court and went to his hostel." 
 
 Fulke was most unjustly exiled, but after a while he returned 
 to England, wandered about in various disguises, and at length, 
 with a ripe project, settled down as a collier or charcoal-burner in 
 Windsor Forest. I will once more draw from Mr. Wright's edi- 
 tion of this knightly biography for what ensued. 
 
 " At length came the king with three knights, all on foot to 
 Fulke, where he was arranging his fire. When Fulke saw the 
 king, he knew him well enough, and he cast the fork from his 
 hand and saluted Ins lord and went on his knees before him very 
 humbly. The king and his three knights had great laughter and 
 game at the breeding and bearing of the collier. They stood there 
 very long. ' Sir Vilain,' said the king, ' have you seen no stag or 
 doe pass here ?' ' Yes, my lord, awhile ago.' ' What beast did 
 you see ?' ' Sir, my lord, a horned one ; and it had long horns.' 
 * Where is it ?' ' Sir, my lord, I know very well how to lead you 
 
KNIGHTS AT HOME. 47 
 
 to where I saw it.' ' Onward then, Sir Yilain, and we will follow 
 you.' ' Sir/ said the collier, ' shall I take my fork in my hand ? 
 for if it were taken I should have thereby a great loss.' ' Yea, 
 Vilain, if you will.' Fulke took the great fork of iron in his hand 
 and led the king to shoot ; for he had a very handsome bow. 
 ' Sir, my lord,' said Fulke, ' will you please to wait, and I will go 
 into the thicket and make the beast come this way by here?' 
 1 Yea,' said the king. Fulke did hastily spring into the thick of 
 the forest; and commanded his company hastily to seize upon 
 King John, for c I have brought him there only with three knights ; 
 and all his company is on the other side of the forest.' Fulke and 
 his company leaped out of the thicket, and rushed upon the king 
 and seized him at once. ' Sir King,' said Fulke, 'now I have you 
 in my power, such judgment I will execute on you as you would 
 on me, if you had taken me.' The king trembled with fear for 
 he had great dread of Fulke." 
 
 There is here, perhaps, something of the romantic history, but 
 with a substantiality of truth. In the end, Fulke, who we are 
 told was really one of the barons to whom we owe Magna Charta, 
 and who was anathematized by the pope, and driven into exile 
 again and again, got the better of all his enemies, pope and king 
 included. There are two traditions touching his death. One is, 
 that he survived to the period of the battle of Lewes, where he 
 was one of a body of Henry the Third's friends who were drowned 
 in the adjacent river. The other tells a very different story, and 
 is probably nearer the truth. "We are inclined to think with Mr. 
 Wright, the editor of the biographical history in question, that he 
 who was drowned near Lewes, was the son of Fulke. We add 
 the following account, less because of its detail touching the death 
 of the old knight than as having reference to how knights lived, 
 moved, and had their being, in the period referred to : — 
 
 " Fulke and Lady Clarice his wife, one night, were sleeping 
 together in their chamber ; and the lady was asleep, and Fulke 
 was awake, and thought of his youth ; and repented much in his 
 heart for his trespasses. At length, he saw in the chamber so 
 great a light, that it was wonderful; and he thought what could it 
 be ? And he heard a voice, as it were, of thunder in the air, and 
 it said: — 'Vassal, God has granted thy penance, which is better 
 
48 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 here than elsewhere.' At that word the lady awoke, and saw the 
 great light, and covered her face for fear. At length this light 
 vanished. And after this light Fulke could never see more, but 
 he was blind all his days. Then Fulke was very hospitable and 
 liberal, and he caused the king's road to be turned through his hall 
 at his manor of Alleston, in order no stranger might pass without 
 having meat or lodging, or other honor or goods of his. This 
 Fulke remained seven years blind, and suffered well his penance. 
 Lady Clarice died and was buried at the New Abbey ; after whose 
 death Fulke lived but a year, and died at the White-town ; and 
 in great honor was he interred at the New Abbey — on whose 
 soul may God have mercy. Near the altar is the body. God 
 have mercy on us all, alive and dead. Amen !" 
 
 The religious sentiment was strong in all Norman knights, but 
 not more so, perhaps, than in the wild chivalry of North America, 
 when first its painted heroes heard of the passion and death of 
 Christ. Charlevoix tells us of an Iroquois, who, on hearing of the 
 crucifixion, exclaimed with the feeling of a Christian crusader, 
 " Oh, if I had been there !" Precisely such an exclamation was 
 once made by a Norman knight, as he listened to a monk narra- 
 ting the great sacrifice on Mount Calvary. The more savage 
 warrior, however, has always had the more poetical feeling. Wit- 
 ness the dying request of a young Indian chief, also noticed by 
 Charlevoix. The dying victor asked to be buried in a blue robe, 
 because that was the color of the sky : the fashion, with many 
 Norman knights, of being interred in a robe and cowl of a monk, 
 had far less of elevated feeling for its motive. 
 
 Having shown something of what the knight did at home, let us 
 contemplate also what he taught there, by precept, if not by ex- 
 ample. There was a knight who was known by the title of " the 
 White Knight," whose name was De la Tour Landay, who was a 
 contemporary of Edward the Black Prince, and who is supposed 
 to have fought at Poictiers. He, is, however, best known, or at 
 least equally well known, as the author of a work entitled " Le 
 Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landay." This book was written, 
 or dictated by him, for the especial benefit of his two daughters, 
 and for the guidance of young ladies generally. It is extremely in- 
 delicate in parts, and in such wise gives no very favorable idea of the 
 
KNIGHTS AT HOME. 49 
 
 young ladies who could bear sucli instruction as is here imparted. 
 The Chevalier performed his authorship after a very free and easy- 
 fashion. He engaged four clerical gentlemen, strictly designated 
 as u two priests and two clerks," whose task it was to procure for 
 him all the necessary illustrative materials, such as anecdotes, 
 apophthegms, and such like. These were collected from all 
 sources, sacred and profane — from the Bible down to any volume, 
 legendary or historical, that would suit his purpose. These he 
 worked mosaically together, adding such wise saw, moral, counsel, 
 or sentiment, as he deemed the case most especially required; — 
 with a sprinkling of stories of his own collecting. A critic in the 
 "Athenaeum," commenting upon this curious volume, says with 
 great truth, that it affords good materials for an examination into 
 the morals and manners of the times. " Nothing," says the re- 
 viewer, " is urged for adoption upon the sensible grounds of right 
 or wrong, or as being in accordance with any admitted moral 
 standard, but because it has been sanctified by long usage, been 
 confirmed by pretended miracle, or been approved by some super- 
 stition which outrages common sense." 
 
 In illustration of these remarks it is shown how the Chevalier 
 recommends a strict observation of the meagre days, upon the 
 ground that the dissevered head of a soldier was once enabled to 
 call for a priest, confess, and listen to the absolution, because the 
 owner of the head had never transgressed the Wednesday and 
 Friday's fasts throughout his lifetime. Avoidance of the seven 
 capital sins is enjoined upon much the same grounds. Gluttony, 
 for instance, is to be avoided, for the good reason, that a prattling 
 magpie once betrayed a lady who had eaten a dish of eels, which 
 her lord had intended for some guests whom he wished particularly 
 to honor. Charity is enjoined, not because the practice thereof is 
 placed by the great teacher, not merely above Hope, but before 
 Faith, but because a lady who, in spite of priestly warning, gave 
 the broken victuals of her household to her dogs rather than to 
 the poor, being on her death-bed, was leaped upon by a couple of 
 black dogs, and that these having approached her lips, the latter 
 became as black as a coal. The knight the more insists upon 
 the proper exercise of charity, seeing that he has unquestionable 
 authority in support of the truth of the story. That is, he knew 
 
 4 
 
50 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 a lady that had known the defunct, and who said she had seen the 
 dogs. Implicit obedience of wives to husbands is insisted on, with 
 a forcibly illustrative argument. A burgher's wife had answered 
 her lord sharply, in place of silently listening to reproof, and 
 meekly obeying his command. The husband, thereupon, dealt his 
 wife a blow with his clenched fist, which smashed her nose, and 
 felled her to the ground. " It is reason and right," says the mailed 
 Mrs. Ellis of his time, " that the husband should have the word of 
 command, and it is an honor to the good wife to hear him, and 
 hold her peace, and leave all high talking to her lord ; and so, on 
 the contrary, it is a great shame to hear a woman strive with her 
 husband, ichether right or wrong, and especially before other peo- 
 ple." Publius Syrus says, that a good wife commands by obey- 
 ing, but the Chevalier evidently had no idea of illustrating the 
 Latin maxim, or recommending the end which it contemplates. 
 The knight places the husband as absolute lord ; and his doing so, 
 in conjunction with the servility which he demands on the part of 
 the wife, reminds me of the saying of Toulotte, which is as true as 
 anything enjoined by the moralizing knight, namely, that " L'obeis- 
 sance aux volontes oVwi chef absolu assimile Vhomme a la brute." 
 This, with a verbal alteration, may be applied as expressive of 
 the effect of the knight's teaching in the matter of feminine obe- 
 dience. The latter is indeed in consonance with the old heathen 
 ideas. Euripides asserts, that the most intolerable wife in the 
 world is a wife who philosophizes, or supports her own opinion. 
 "We are astonished to find a Christian knight thus agreed with a 
 heathen poet — particularly as it was in Christian times that the 
 maxim was first published, which says, " Ce que femme vent, Dieu 
 le veut /" 
 
 This sentiment reminds me, that it is time to show how the 
 knight was affected by the tender passion, how it was sometimes 
 his glory and sometimes his shame. He was sometimes the vic- 
 tim, and at others the victimizer. 
 
LOVE IN CHEVALIERS, AND CHEVALIERS IN LOVE. 51 
 
 LOVE IN CHEVALIERS, AND CHEVALIERS IN 
 LOVE. 
 
 " How pleasing are the steps we lovers make, 
 When in the paths of our content we pace 
 To meet our longings !" — The Hog hath Lost his Purse. 
 
 Butler, in his Hudibras (part iii. cant. 1), has amusingly* illus- 
 trated the feeling which moved knights-errant, and the particular 
 object they had in view : " the ancient errant knights," he says : — 
 
 " Won all their ladies' hearts in fights, 
 And cuts whole giants into fritters, 
 To put them into amorous twitters ; 
 Whose stubborn bowels scorned to yield, 
 Until their gallants were half killed : 
 But Avhen their bones were drubbed so sore 
 They durst not win one combat more, 
 The ladies' hearts began to melt, 
 Subdued by blows their lovers felt. 
 So Spanish heroes with their lances 
 At once wound bulls and ladies' fancies." 
 
 However willing a knight may have been to do homage to his 
 lady, the latter, if she truly regarded the knight, never allowed his 
 homage to her to be paid at the cost of injury to his country's honor 
 or his own. An instance of this is afforded us in the case of Ber- 
 trand de Guesclin. There never was man who struck harder 
 blows when he was a bachelor; but when he went a wooing, and 
 still more after he had wed the incomparable Tiphania, he lost all 
 care for honor in the field, and had no delight but in the society 
 of his spouse. The lady, however, was resolved that neither his 
 sword nor his reputation should acquire rust through any fault or 
 beauty of hers. She rallied him soundly on his home-keeping 
 propensities, set them in contrast with the activity of his bachelor- 
 
52 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 days, and the renown acquired by it, and forthwith talked him out 
 of her bower and into his saddle. 
 
 The English did not profit by the lady's eloquence, for our fore- 
 fathers never had a more gallant or more difficult adversary to 
 deal with than Bertrand. Living, his name was a terror to them ; 
 and dying, he had the sympathy of those who had been his foes. 
 Charles V. made him Constable of France, and appointed him a 
 grave at the foot of his own royal tomb. De Guesclin would never 
 have been half the man he was but for the good sense of his wife 
 Tiphania. 
 
 There are many instances in romance which would seem to im- 
 ply, that so strained was the sentiment which bound knights to re- 
 spect ladies, it compelled them not to depart therefrom even in 
 extreme cases, involving lightness of conduct and infidelity. The 
 great northern chiefs, who were a sort of very rough knights in 
 their way, were, however, completely under the distaff. Their 
 wives could divorce themselves at will. Thus, in Erysbiggia Saga 
 we read of Borck, an Icelandic chief, who, bringing home a guest 
 whom his wife not only refused to welcome, but attempted to stab, 
 administered such correction to his spouse in return, that the lady 
 called in witnesses and divorced herself on the spot. Thereupon 
 the household goods were divided among them, and the affair was 
 rapidly and cheaply managed without the intervention of an Eccle- 
 siastical Court. More modern chivalry would not have tolerated 
 the idea of correcting even a faithless, much less a merely angry 
 spouse. Indeed, the amatory principle was quite as strong as the 
 religious one ; and in illustration thereof, it has been remarked 
 that the knight must have been more than ordinarily devout who 
 had God on his right hand (the place of honor), and his lady on 
 his left. 
 
 To ride at the ring was then the pleasantest pastime for knights ; 
 and ladies looked on and applauded the success, or laughed at the 
 failures. The riding, without attempting to carry off the ring, is 
 still common enough at our fairs, for children ; but in France and 
 Germany, it is seriously practised in both its simple and double 
 forms, by persons of all ages, who glide round to the grinding of 
 an organ, and look as grave as if they were on desperate business. 
 
 It is an undoubted matter of fact, that although a knight was 
 
LOVE IN CHEVALIERS, AND CHEVALIERS IN LOVE. 53 
 
 bound to be tender in his gallantry, there were some to be found 
 whose wooing was of the very roughest ; and there were others 
 who, if not rough, were rascally. 
 
 The old Rue des Lombards, in Paris, was at one time occupied 
 exclusively by the "professed pourpoint : makers," as a modern 
 tailor might say. They carried on a flourishing trade, especially 
 in times when men, like Bassompierre, thought nothing of paying, 
 or promising to pay, fourteen thousand crowns for a pourpoint. 
 When I say the street was thus occupied exclusively, I must no- 
 tice an exception. There were a few other residents in it, the 
 Jew money-lenders or usurers ; and when I hear the old French 
 proverb cited " patient as a Lombard," I do not know whether it 
 originally applied to the tailors or the money-lenders, both of whom 
 were extensively cheated by their knightly customers. Here is an 
 illustration of it, showing that all Jessicas have not been as lucky 
 as Shylock's daughter, and that some Jews have been more cruelly 
 treated than Shylock's daughter's father — whom I have always 
 considered as one of the most ill-used of men. 
 
 In the Rue des Lombards there dwelt a wealthy Jew, who put 
 his money out at interest, and kept his daughter under lock and 
 key at home. But the paternal Jew did not close his shutters, 
 and the Lombard street Jessica, sitting all day at the window, at- 
 tracted the homage of many passers-by. These were chiefly 
 knights who came that way to be. measured for pourpoints ; and 
 no knight was more attracted by the black eyes of the young lady 
 in question, than the Chevalier Giles de Pontoise. That name 
 indeed is one of a celebrated hero of a burlesque tragedy, but the 
 original knight was " my Beverley." 
 
 Giles wore the showiest pourpoint in the world ; for which he 
 had obtained long credit. It struck him that he would call upon 
 the Jew to borrow a few hundred pistoles, and take the opportu- 
 nity to also borrow the daughter. He felt sure of succeeding in 
 both exploits ; for, as he remarked, if he could not pay the money 
 he was about to borrow, he could borrow it of his more prudent 
 relatives, and so acquit himself of his debt. With regard to the , 
 lady, he had serenaded her, night after night, till she looked as 
 ready to leap down to him as the Juliets who played to Barry's 
 Romeo; — and he had sung " Ecco ridente il sole." or what was 
 
54 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 then equivalent to it, accompanied by his guitar, and looking as 
 ridiculous the while, without being half so silvery-toned as Rubini 
 in Almaviva, warbling his delicious nonsense to Eosina. Our Jew, 
 like old Bartolo, was destined to pay the musician. 
 
 Giles succeeded in extracting the money required from the 
 usurer, and he had like success in inducing the daughter to trust 
 to his promises. He took the latter to Pontoise, deceived her by 
 a mock-marriage, and spent all that he had borrowed from the 
 father, in celebrating his pretended nuptials with the daughter. 
 There never was a more recreant knight than Giles de Pontoise. 
 
 However, bills will become due, if noble or simple put their 
 names to them, and the Jew claimed at once both his debt and his 
 daughter. He failed in obtaining his money, but the lady he car- 
 ried off by violence, she herself exhibiting considerable reluctance 
 to leave the Chateau de Pontoise for the paternal dungeon in the 
 Rue des Lombards. 
 
 This step brought Giles to a course of reflection. It was not 
 of that quality which his confessor would have recommended, but 
 rather of a satanic aspect. " In the usurer's house," thought Giles, 
 " live the tailor to whom I am indebted for my pourpoint, the Jew 
 who holds my promise to pay, and the pretty daughter of whom I 
 have been so unjustly deprived. I will set fire to the house. If 
 I burn tailor, money-lender, and the proofs of my liabilities, I shall 
 have done a good night's work, if I therewith can carry off little 
 Jessica." 
 
 Thereupon, Giles went down to the Rue des Lombards, and 
 with such aid as was then easily purchasable, he soon wrapped 
 the Jew's dwelling in flames. Shylock looked to his papers and 
 money-bags. The knight groped through the smoke and carried 
 off the daughter. The Jew still held the promissory note of the 
 Knight of Pontoise, whose incendiary act, however, had destroyed 
 half of- one side of the Rue des Lombards. Therewith had per- 
 ished reams of bonds which made slaves of chevaliers to Jew 
 money-lenders. "Sic vos non vobis," thought Giles, " but at all 
 events, if he has my bill, I have possession of Jessica." 
 
 The Jew held as much to his daughter as to his ducats. He 
 persecuted the pretended husband with a pertinacity which event- 
 ually overcame Giles de Pontoise. A compromise was effected. 
 
LOVE IN CHEVALIERS, AND CHEVALIERS IN LOVE. 55 
 
 The knight owed the usurer three thousand golden crowns, and 
 had stolen from him his only daughter. Giles agreed to surrender 
 his " lady," on condition that the money-lender should sign an ac- 
 quittance of the debt. This done, the Jew and daughter walked 
 homeward, neither of them well satisfied with the result of their 
 dealings with a knight. 
 
 The burnt-out Lombarder turned round at the threshold of the 
 knight's door, with a withering sneer, like Edmund Kean's in 
 Shylock when he was told to make haste and go home, and begin 
 to be a Christian. " It is little but sorrow I get by you, at all 
 events," said the Jew to the Chevalier. 
 
 " Do you make so light of your grandson ?" asked Giles. And 
 with this Parthian dart he shut his door hi the face of the trio 
 who were his victims. 
 
 This knight was a victimizer ; but below we have an illustration 
 of knights victimized through too daring affection. 
 
 The great Karloman may be said to have been one of those 
 crowned knights who really had very little of the spirit of chivalry 
 in him, with respect to ladies. He married, successfully, two 
 wives, but to neither did he allow the title of Empress. It is, 
 however, not with his two wives, but his two daughters and their 
 chevaliers -par amours, with whom we have now to do. 
 
 In the Rue de la Harpe, in Paris, may be seen the remains, 
 rather than the ruins, of the old building erected by the Emperor 
 Julian, and which was long known by the name of the " old pal- 
 ace." It served as a palace about a thousand years and half a 
 century ago, when one night there drew up before it a couple of 
 knights, admirably mounted, and rather roughly escorted by a 
 mob, who held up their lanterns to examine the riders, and han- 
 dled their pikes as if they were more ready to massacre the knights 
 than to marshal them. 
 
 All the civility they received on this February night was of a 
 highly equivocal nature. They were admitted, indeed, into the 
 first and largest court of the palace, but the old seneschal locked 
 and barred the gate behind them. An officer too approached to 
 bid them welcome, but he had hardly acquitted himself of his civil 
 mission when he peremptorily demanded of them the surrender of 
 their swords. 
 
56 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 " We are the King's own messengers," said one of the knights, 
 rather puzzled at the reception vouchsafed to them ; — " and we 
 have, moreover, a despatch to deliver, written in our gracious mas- 
 ter's own hand," remarked the second knight. 
 
 " Vive Louis le Debonnaire !" exclaimed the seneschal ; " how 
 fares it with our sovereign ?" 
 
 " As well as can be," was the reply, " with a monarch who has 
 been engaged six whole weeks at Aix, in burying his father and 
 predecessor, Charlemagne. Here is his missive." This missive 
 was from Louis the Frolicsome, or Louis the Good-Natured, or 
 Louis of Fair Aspect. He was morose, wittily disposed, and ill- 
 featured; — but then the poet-laureate had given him his fine 
 name ; and the king wore it as if it had been fairly won. He had 
 clipped, shaved, and frocked, all his natural brothers, and then 
 shut them up in monasteries. He had no more respect for treat- 
 ies than he had for Mohammed, and by personal example he 
 taught perjury and rebellion to those whom he cruelly punished 
 when they imitated their exalted instructor. The seneschal pe- 
 rused the letter addressed to him by his royal correspondent, 
 and immediately requested the two knights to enter the palace 
 itself. 
 
 They were ushered into a lofty-arched apartment on the ground 
 floor, which ordinarily served as an ante-room for the guards on 
 duty ; it was for the moment, however, empty. They who have 
 visited the old Palais de Thermes, as it is called, have, doubtlessly, 
 remarked and admired this solid relic of the past. 
 
 After entering, the seneschal once more lifted the despatch to 
 the flambeau, read it through, looked at the seal, then at the 
 knights, coughed uneasily, and began to wear an air of dislike for 
 some duty imposed upon him. He repeated, as if he were learn- 
 ing by rote, the names Raoul de Lys and Robert de Quercy. 
 " Those are our names," observed the first ; " we have ridden hith- 
 er by the king's orders to announce his coming ; and having done 
 so, let us have fire and food, lest we be famished and frozen before 
 he arrives." 
 
 " Hem !" muttered the seneschal, " I am extremely sorry ; but, 
 according to this letter, you are my prisoners, and till to-morrow 
 you must remain in this apartment ;" and, seeing them about to 
 
LOVE IN CHEVALIERS, AND CHEVALIERS IN LOVE. 57 
 
 remonstrate, he added, " You will be quite at liberty here, except, 
 of course, that you cant't get out ; you will have separate quarters 
 to-morrow." 
 
 It was in vain that they inquired the reason for their detention, 
 the nature of the charge alleged against them, or what they had 
 further to expect. The seneschal dryly referred them to the mon- 
 arch. He himself knew nothing more than his orders, and by 
 them he was instructed to keep the two friends in close confine- 
 ment till the sovereign's arrival. " On second thoughts," said the 
 seneschal, " I must separate you at once. There is the bell in the 
 tower of St. Jacques ringing midnight, and to-morrow will be upon 
 us, before its iron tongue has done wagging. I really must trouble 
 one of you gentlemen to follow me." The voice was not so civil 
 as the words, and after much parleying and reluctance, the two 
 friends parted. Robert bade Raoul be of good cheer ; and Raoul, 
 who was left behind, whispered that it would be hard, indeed, if 
 harm was to come to them under such a roof. 
 
 The roof, however, of this royal palace, looked very much like 
 the covering of a place in which very much harm might be very 
 quietly effected. But there were dwelling there two beings who 
 might have been taken for spirits of good, so winning, so natural, 
 and so loveable were the two spirits in question. They were no 
 other than the two daughters of Charlemagne, Gisla and Rotrude. 
 The romancers, who talk such an infinite deal of nonsense, say of 
 them that their sweet-scented beauty was protected by the prickles 
 of principle. The most rapid of analysers may see at once that 
 this was no great compliment to the ladies. It was meant, how- 
 ever, to be the most refined flattery ; and the will was accepted for 
 the deed. 
 
 Now, the two knights loved the two ladies, and if they had not, 
 neither Father Daniel nor Sainte Foix could have alluded to their 
 amorous history; nor Father Pasquale, of the Convent of the 
 Arminians in Venice, have touched it up with some of the hues 
 of romance, nor Roger de Beauvoir have woven the two together, 
 nor unworthy segomet have applied it to the illustration of daring 
 lovers. 
 
 These two girls were marvellously high-spirited. They had 
 
58 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 been wooed by emperors ; but feeling no inclination to answer 
 favorably to the wooing, Charlemagne generously refused to put 
 force upon their affections, and bade them love only where their 
 hearts directed them. This " license" gave courage to numberless 
 nobles of various degrees, but Rotrude and Gisla said nay to all 
 their regular advances. The Princesses were, in fact, something 
 like Miss Languish, thought love worth nothing without a little 
 excitement, and would have considered elopement as the proper 
 preceder of the nuptial ceremony. Their mother, Hildegarda, 
 was an unexceptional woman, but, like good Queen Charlotte, who 
 let her daughters read Polly Honeycombe as well as Hannah 
 More, she was a little confused in the way she taught morals, and 
 the young Princesses fell in love, at the first opportunity, with 
 gallant gentlemen of — as compared with princesses — rather low 
 degree. In this respect, there is a parallel between the house of 
 Karloman and some other houses of more modern times. 
 
 Louis le Debonnaire had, as disagreeable brothers will have, 
 an impertinent curiosity respecting his sisters' affairs. He was, 
 here, the head of his family, and deemed himself as divinely em- 
 powered to dispose of the hearts of these ladies, as of the families 
 and fortunes of his people. He had learned the love-passages 
 that had been going on, and he had hinted that when he reached 
 the old palace in Paris, he would make it as calmly cold as a 
 cloister, and that there were disturbed hearts there, which should 
 be speedily restored to a lasting tranquillity. The young ladies 
 did not trouble themselves to read the riddle of a brother who was 
 for ever affecting much mystery. But they prepared to welcome 
 his arrival, and seemed more than ordinarily delighted when they 
 knew that intelligence of his approaching coming had been brought 
 by the two knights then in the castle. 
 
 Meanwhile, Raoul de Lys sat shivering on a stone bench in the 
 great guard-room. He subsequently addressed himself to a scanty 
 portion of skinny wild boar, very ill-cooked ; drank, with intense 
 disgust, part of a flask of hydromel of the very worst quality ; and 
 then having gazed on the miniature of Rotrude, which he took 
 from beneath the buff jerkin under his corslet, he apostrophized it 
 till he grew sleepy, upon which he blew out his lamp, and threw 
 himself on an execrably hard couch. He was surprised to find 
 
LOVE IN CHEVALIERS, AND CHEVALIERS IN LOVE. 59 
 
 that he was not in the dark. There was very good reason for 
 the contrary. 
 
 As he blew out his lamp, a panel in the stone wall glided noise- 
 lessly open, and Robert de Quercy appeared upon the threshold — 
 one hand holding a lamp, the other leading a lady. The lady was 
 veiled ; and she and the knight hurriedly approached Raoul, who 
 as hurriedly rushed forward to meet them. He had laid his armor 
 by ; and they who recollect Mr. Young in Hotspur, and how he 
 looked in tight buff suit, before he put his armor on, may have 
 some idea of the rather ridiculous guise in which Raoul appeared 
 to the lady. But she was used to such sights, and had not time 
 to remark it even had she not been so accustomed. 
 
 Raoul observing that Robert was accompanied only by Gisla, 
 made anxious inquiry for Rotrude. Gisla in a few words told 
 him that her sister would speedily be with them, that there was 
 certain danger, even death, threatening the two cavaliers, and 
 probable peril menacing — as Gisla remarked, with a blush — those 
 who loved them. The King, she added, had spoken angrily of 
 coming to purify the palace, as she had heard from Count Volrade, 
 who appears to have been a Polonius, as regards his office, with 
 all the gossip, but none of the good sense, of the old chamberlain 
 in Denmark. 
 
 " Death to us !" exclaimed Robert. " Accursed be the prince 
 who transgresses the Gospel admonition, not to forget his own or 
 his father's friends." " "We were the favored servants of Charle- 
 magne," said Raoul. " We were of his closest intimacy," exclaim- 
 ed Robert. "Never," interrupted Raoul, "did he ascend his 
 turret to watch the stars, without summoning us, his nocturnal 
 pages, as he called us, to his side." " He dare not commit such a 
 crime ; for the body of Charlemagne is scarcely sealed down in 
 its tomb ; and Louis has not a month's hold of the sceptre." 
 
 " He holds it firmly enough, however, to punish villany," ex- 
 claimed Louis himself, as he appeared in the doorway leading to 
 a flight of stone stairs by which Gisla had indicated the speedy 
 appearance of Rotrude. 
 
 And here I would beseech my readers to believe that if the 
 word " tableau !" ought to be written at this situation, and if it ap- 
 pears to them to be too melo-dramatic to be natural. I am not in 
 
60 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 fault. I refer them to all the histories and romances in which 
 this episode in knightly story is told, and in all they will find that 
 Louis makes his appearance exactly as I have described, and pre- 
 cisely like Signor Tamburini in the great scene of Lucrezia Borgia. 
 
 Louis having given expression to his startling bit of recitative, 
 dragged forward Rotrude, whom he had held behind him, by the 
 wrist. The background was occupied by four guards, wearing 
 hoods ; and I can not think of them without being reminded of 
 those same four old guards, with M. Desmousseaux at their head, 
 who always represented the Greek or Roman armies upon the 
 stage of the Theatre Francais, when Talma was the Nero or the 
 Sylla, the Orestes or the Capitolinus of the night. 
 
 With some allusion to Rotrude as a sacred dove, and to himself 
 as a bird-catcher, Louis handed his sister to a stone bench, and 
 then grew good-natured in his remarks. This sudden benevolence 
 gave a chill to the entire company. They turned as pale as any 
 Russian nobleman to whom Nicholas was extraordinarily civil. 
 
 " We know the winding passages of the palace of Thermes," 
 said Louis, laughingly, " as well as our sisters ; and I have not 
 gone through them to-night for the purpose of terrifying the sister 
 whom I encountered there, or the other sister whom I see here. 
 I am a kind-hearted brother, and am marvellously well-disposed. 
 I need only appeal to these four gentlemen of my guard, who will 
 presently take off their hoods, and serve as witnesses this night in 
 a little ceremony having reference to my dear Rotrude." 
 
 " A ceremony ! this night !" exclaimed the two princesses. 
 
 " Ay, by the nails of the cross ! Two ceremonies. You shall 
 both be married forthwith. I will inaugurate my reign by a double 
 wedding, here in the old palace of Thermes. You, Gisla, shall 
 espouse Robert, Count cle Quercy, and you, Rotrude, shall wed 
 with Raoul, Baron de Lys. You might have aimed higher, 
 but they are gallant gentlemen, friends of my deceased sire ; and, 
 by my sooth, the nuptials shall not lack state and ceremony! 
 Here are our wedding-gifts to the bridegrooms." 
 
 He pointed to two showy suits of armor, the pieces of which were 
 carried by the four guards. The knights were in a dream of delight. 
 They vowed eternal gratitude to the most noble of emperors and 
 unparalleled of brothers. 
 
LOVE IN CHEVALIERS, AND CHEVALIERS IN LOVE. 61 
 
 '•» 
 
 " We have no great faith in human gratitude," said Louis, " and 
 shall not expect from you more than is due. And you, my sis- 
 ters," added he, " retire for awhile ; put on what you will ; but do 
 not tarry here at the toilette of men-at-arms, like peasant-girls 
 looking at the equipping of two pikemen." 
 
 The two princesses withdrew ; and there would have been a 
 smile upon their lips, only that they suspected their brother. 
 Hoping the best, however, they kissed the tips of their rosy fingers 
 to the knights, and tripped away, like two pets of the ballet. They 
 were true daughters of their sire, who reckoned love-passages as 
 even superior to stricken fields. He was not an exemplary father, 
 nor a faithful husband. His entourage was not of the most re- 
 spectable ; and in some of his journeys he was attended by the 
 young wife of one of his own cavaliers, clad in cavalier costume. 
 It was a villanously reprobate action, not the less so that Hermen- 
 garde was living. The mention of it will disgust every monarch 
 in Europe who reads my volume ; and I am sure that it will pro- 
 duce no such strong sensation of reproof anywhere as in the bosom 
 of an admirable personage " over the water." 
 
 The two princesses, then, had not so much trouble from the 
 prickles of principle as the romances told of them. But, consid- 
 ering the example set them by their imperial father, they were 
 really very tolerable princesses, under the circumstances. 
 " Don your suits, gentlemen !" exclaimed the king. 
 The four guards advanced with the separate pieces of armor, 
 at which the two knights gazed curiously for a moment or two, 
 as two foxes might at a trap in which lay a much-desired felicity. 
 They were greatly delighted, yet half afraid. The monarch grew 
 impatient, and the knights addressed themselves at once to their 
 adornment. They put aside their own armor, and with the assist- 
 ance of the four mute gentlemen-at-arms they fitted on the brassards 
 or arm-pieces, winch became them as though the first Milainer 
 who ever dressed knight had taken their measure. With some 
 little trouble they were accoutred, less as became bridegrooms than 
 barons going to battle ; and this done, they took their seats, at a 
 sign from the king, who bade the four gentlemen come to an end 
 with what remained of the toilette. 
 
 The knights submitted, not without some misgiving, to the ser- 
 
62 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIK DAYS. 
 
 vices of the four mysterious valets! and, in a short time, the 
 preparations were complete, even to the helmet with the closed 
 visor. This done, the knights took their places, or were led rather 
 to two high-backed oaken chairs. As soon as they were seated 
 there, the four too-officious attendants applied their hands to the 
 closed head-pieces ; and in a very brief space the heads of the 
 cavaliers sunk gently upon their breasts, as if they were in deep 
 slumber or as deep meditation. 
 
 Two o'clock rang out from the belfry of St. Jacques, as the two 
 brides entered. The king pointed with a smile to the bridegrooms, 
 and left the apartment with his attendants. The ladies thought 
 that the lovers exhibited little ardor or anxiety to meet them ; for 
 they remained motionless on their oaken chairs. The daughters 
 of Charlemagne advanced, half-timidly, half-playfully ; and, at 
 length, finding the knights not disposed to address them, gently 
 called to each by Ms name. Raoul and Robert continued motion- 
 less and mute. They were in fact dead. They had been strangled 
 or suffocated in a peculiar sort of armor, which had been sent to 
 Charlemagne from Ravenna, in return for a jewelled vase pre- 
 sented by that emperor to the ancient city. " In 1560," says Mon- 
 sieur Roger de Beauvoir, himself quoting an Italian manuscript, 
 there were several researches made in this part of the palace of 
 Thermes, one result of which was the discovery of a ' casque a 
 souffiet,' all the openings in which could be closed in an instant 
 by a simple pressure of the finger on a spring. At the same 
 instant the lower part of the neck-piece tightened round the 
 throat, and the patient was disposed of. In this helmet," adds the 
 author, " was found the head of a man, well preserved, with beard 
 and teeth admirable for their beauty." I think, however, that in 
 this matter M. de Beauvoir proves a little too much. 
 
 Father Daniel, in his history notices the vengeance of Louis le 
 Debonnaire against two young nobles who were, reputedly, the 
 lovers of Gisla and Rotrude. The details of the act of vengeance 
 have been- derived from an Italian source ; and it is said that an 
 Italian monk, named Pagnola, had some prominent part in this 
 dreary drama, impelled thereto by a blow dealt to him at the hands 
 of Raoul, by way of punishment for some contemptuous phrases 
 which the monk had presumed to apply to the great Charlemagne. 
 
LOVE IN CHEVALIERS, AND CHEVALIERS IN LOVE. 63 
 
 Love and sword-blades seem to have been as closely connected 
 as " Trousseaux et Layettes," which are always named together 
 in the shop-fronts of a Parisian " Lingere." There was once an 
 ample field for the accommodation of both the sentiments of love 
 and bravery in the old Chaussee d'Antin, when it was merely a 
 chaussee or highway, and not the magnificent street it now is. It 
 was, down even to comparatively modern times, the resort of lovers 
 of every degree, from dukes and duchesses to common dragoons 
 and dairymaids. They were not always, however, under this 
 strict classification. 
 
 But whatever classification or want of it there may have been, 
 there was a part of the road which was constantly the scene of 
 bloody encounters. This was at the narrow bridge of Arcans. 
 Here if two cavaliers met, each with a lady at his side, it was a 
 matter of honor not to give way. On the contrary, the latter was 
 to be forced at the point of the sword. While the champions were 
 contending, the ladies would scarcely affect to faint ; they would 
 stand aside, remain unconcerned on their jennets or mules, till the 
 two simpletons had pinked one another ; or lounge in their cum- 
 brous coaches till the lovers limped back to them. 
 
 It was on this bridge, of which no vestige now remains, not 
 even in a museum, that the Count de Fiesque one evening escort- 
 ing Madame de Lionne, encountered M. de Tallard, who was cha- 
 peroning Louison d'Arquien. Each couple was in a carriage, 
 and neither would make way for the other to pass. Thereupon 
 the two cavaliers leaped from their coaches, drew their swords, 
 planted their feet firmly on the ground, and began slashing at each 
 other like two madmen, to the great delight of a large crowd who 
 enjoyed nothing so much as the sight of two noble gentlemen cut- 
 ting one another's throats. 
 
 The ladies, meanwhile, flourished their handkerchiefs from their 
 respective carriage-windows, for the encouragement of their cham- 
 pions. Now and then each laughed aloud when her particular 
 friend had made a more than ordinary successful thrust ; and each 
 was generous enough to applaud any especial dexterity, even when 
 her own lover thereby bloodily suffered. The two foolish fellows 
 only poked at each other with the more intensity. And when 
 they had sufficiently slit their pourpoints and slashed their sleeves, 
 
64 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 the ladies, weary of waiting any longer for a more exciting de- 
 nouement, rushed between the combatants, like the Sabine ladies 
 between the contending hosts; each gentleman gallantly kissed 
 the lady who did not belong to him ; and the whole four gayly 
 supped together, as though they had been the best friends in the 
 world. 
 
 This incident fairly brings us to the questions of duelling and 
 death, as illustrated by chivalry. 
 
65 
 
 DUELLING, DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 " Le duel, ma mie, ne vaut pas un duo, de Lully." 
 
 Crispin Mourant. 
 
 As an effect of chivalry, duelling deserves some passing notice. 
 Its modern practice was but an imitation of chivalric encounters, 
 wherein the issue of battle was left to the judgment of God. 
 
 Bassompierre dates the origin of duelling (in France) from the 
 period of Henri II. Previous to that king's reign, the quarrels 
 of gentlemen were determined by the decree of the constable and 
 marshals of France. These only allowed knightly encounters in 
 the lists, when they could not of themselves decide upon the rela- 
 tive justice and merits of the dispute. 
 
 " I esteem him no gentleman," said Henri one day, " who has 
 the lie given him, and who does not chastise the giver." It was 
 a remark lightly dropped, but it did not fall unheeded. The king 
 in fact encouraged those who resorted, of their own will, to a 
 bloody arbitrament of their dissensions ; and duelling became so 
 " fashionable," that even the penalty of death levelled against those 
 who practised it, was hardly effectual enough to check duellists. 
 At the close of the reign of Henri IV. and the commencement of 
 that of Louis XIII. the practice was in least activity ; but after the 
 latter period, as the law was not rigorously applied, the foolish 
 usage was again revived ; and sanguinary simpletons washed out 
 their folly in blood. 
 
 But duelling has a more remote origin than that ascribed to it 
 by Bassompierre. Sabine, in his " Dictionary of Duelling," a re- 
 cently-published American work, dates its rise from the challenge 
 of the Philistine accepted by David ! However this may be, it is 
 a strange anomaly that an advocate for the savage and sinful habit 
 of duelling has appeared in that France which claims to be the 
 
 5 
 
66 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 leader of civilization. Jules Janin has, among his numberless 
 feuilletons published three reasons authorizing men to appeal to 
 single combat. The above M. Janin divides the world into three 
 parts — a world of cravens ; a world in which opinion is every- 
 thing ; and a world of hypocrites and calumniators. He considers 
 the man who has not the heart to risk his life in a duel, as one 
 lost in the world of cravens, because the legion of cowards by 
 whom he is surrounded will assume courage at his expense. 
 
 Further, according to our gay neighbor's reasoning, the man is 
 lost in this world, in which opinion is everything, who will not 
 seek to obtain a good opinion at the sword's point. 
 
 Again, says M. Janin, the man is lost in this world of hypo- 
 crites and calumniators who will not demand reparation, sword in 
 hand, for the calumnies and malicious reports to which he has been 
 exposed. It would be insulting to the common sense of my read- 
 ers to affect to point out to them the rottenness of reasons like 
 these. They could only convince such men as Buckingham and 
 Alfieri, and others in circumstances like theirs ; Buckingham after 
 killing Lord Shrewsbury at Barnes, and pressing the head of 
 Lady Shrewsbury on his bloody shirt ; and Alfieri, who, after a 
 vile seduction, and very nearly a terrible murder in defence of it, 
 went home and slept more peacefully than he had ever slept 
 before : " dopo tanto e si stranie peripizie d'un sol giorno, non ho 
 dormito mai d'un sonno piu tenace e piu dolce." Alfieri would 
 have agreed with M. Janin, that in duelling lay the safeguard of 
 all that remains to us of civilization. But how comes it then that 
 civilization is thus a wreck, since duelling has been so long exer- 
 cising a protective influence over it? 
 
 However few, though dazzling, were the virtues possessed by 
 the chivalrous heroes of ancient history, it must be conceded to 
 them, that they possessed that of valor, or a disregard of life, in 
 an eminent degree. The instances of cowardice are so rare that 
 they prove the general rule of courage ; yet these men, with no 
 guides but a spurious divinity and a false philosophy, never dream- 
 ed of having recourse to the duel, as a means of avenging a pri- 
 vate wrong. Marius, indeed, was once challenged, but it was by 
 a semi-barbarous Teutonic chief, whom the haughty Roman rec- 
 ommended, if he were weary of his life to go and hang himself. 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 67 
 
 Themistocles, too, whose wisdom and courage the most successful 
 of our modern gladiators may admire and envy, when Eurybiades 
 threatened to give him a blow, exclaimed, " Strike, but hear me !" 
 Themistocles, it must be remembered, was a man of undaunted 
 courage, while his jealous provoker was notorious for little else but 
 his extreme cowardice. 
 
 But, in truth, there have been brave men in all countries, who 
 have discouraged this barbarous practice. A Turkish pacha re- 
 minded a man who had challenged a fellow Spahi, that they had 
 no right to slay one another while there were foes to subdue. The 
 Dauphin of Yiennois told the Count of Savoy, who had challenged 
 him, that he would send the count one of his fiercest bulls, and 
 that if the count were so minded, his lordship of Savoy might test 
 his prowess against an antagonist difficult to overcome. The great 
 Frederick would not tolerate the practice of duelling in his army; 
 and he thoroughly despised the arguments used for its justification. 
 A greater man than Frederick, Turenne, would never allow him- 
 self to be what was called " concerned in an affair of honor/' 
 Once, when the hero of Sintzheim and the Rhine had half drawn 
 his sword to punish a disgusting insult, to which he had been sub- 
 jected by a rash young officer, he thrust it back into the sheath, 
 with the words : " Young man, could I wipe your blood from my 
 conscience with as much ease as I can this filthy proof of your 
 folly from my face, I would take your life upon the spot." 
 
 Even the chivalrous knights who thought duelling a worthy 
 occupation for men of valor, reduced opportunities for its practice 
 to a very small extent. Uniting with the church, they instituted 
 the Savior's Truce, by which duels were prohibited from Wednes- 
 day to the following Monday, because, it was said, those days had 
 been consecrated by our Savior'?? Passion. This, in fact, left only 
 Tuesday as a clear day for settling quarrels by force of arms. 
 
 There probably never existed a mortal who was opposed by 
 more powerful or more malignant adversaries than St. Augustin 
 was. His great enemies the Donatists never, it is true, challenged 
 him to any more dangerous affray than a war of literary contro- 
 versy. But it was in answer to one of their missiles hurled against 
 him, in the form of an assertion, that the majority of authors was 
 on their side, he aptly told them that it was the sign of a cause 
 
68 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 destitute of truth when only the erring authority of many men 
 could be relied on. 
 
 The Norman knights or chiefs introduced the single combat 
 among us. It is said they -were principally men who had disgraced 
 themselves in the face of the enemy, and who sought to wipe out 
 the disgrace in the blood of single individuals. It is worthy of 
 remark too, that when king and sovereign princes had forbidden 
 duelling, under the heaviest penalties, the popes absolved the mon- 
 archs from their vows when the observance of them would have 
 put in peril the lives of offending nobles who had turned to Rome 
 in their perplexity, and who had gained there a reputation for 
 piety, as Hector did, who was esteemed so highly religious, for no 
 other reason than that he had covered with rich gifts the altar of 
 the father of Olympus. 
 
 Supported by the appearance that impunity was to be purchased 
 at Rome, and encouraged by the example of fighting-cardinals 
 themselves, duelling and assassination stalked hand in hand abroad. 
 In France alone, in the brief space of eighteen years, four thousand 
 gentlemen were killed in rencontres, upon quarrels of the most 
 trivial nature. In the same space of time, not less than fourteen 
 thousand pardons for duelling were granted. In one province 
 alone, of France, in Limousin, one hundred and twenty gentlemen 
 were slain in six months — a greater number than had honorably 
 fallen in the same period, which was one of war, in defence of the 
 sovereign, their country, and their homes. The term rencontre 
 was used in France to elude the law. If gentlemen " met" by 
 accident and fought, lawyers pleaded that this was not a duel, 
 which required preliminaries between the two parties. How fre- 
 quent the rencontres were, in spite of the penalty of death, is thus 
 illustrated by Victor Hugo, in his Marion Delorme : — 
 
 " Toujours norabre de duels, le trois c'etait d'Angennes 
 Contre d'Arquien, pour avoir porte du point de Genes. 
 Lavarde avec Pons s'est rencontre le dix, 
 Pour avoir pris a Pons la ferame de Sourdis. 
 Sourdis avec Dailly pour une du theatre 
 De Mondorf. Le neuf, Nogent avec Lachatre, 
 Pour avoir mal ecrit trois vers de Colletet. 
 Gorde avec Margaillan, pour l'heure qu'il etait. 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 69 
 
 D'Himiere avec Gondi, pour le pas a l'eglise. 
 Et puis tous les Brissac avec tous les Soubise, 
 A propos d'un pari d'un cheval contre un chien. 
 Enfin, Caussade avec Latournelle, pour rien. 
 Pour le plaisir, Caussade a rue Latournelle. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor denounced this practice with great earnestness, 
 and with due balancing of the claims of honor and of Christianity. 
 " Yea ; but flesh and blood can not endure a blow or a disgrace. 
 Grant that too ; but take this into the account : flesh and blood 
 shall not inherit the kingdom of God." 
 
 What man could endure for honor's sake, however, is shown in 
 the Memoirs of the Sieur de Pontis, who, in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, was asked to be second to a friend, when duels were punish- 
 able by death to all parties concerned in them. The friend of De 
 Pontis pressed it on him, as a custom always practised among 
 friends; and his captain and lieutenant- colonel did not merely 
 permit, but ordered him to do what his friend desired. 
 
 Boldly as many knights met death, there were not a few who 
 did their best, and that very wisely, to avoid " the inevitable." 
 
 Yalorously as some chevaliers encountered deadly peril, the 
 German knights, especially took means to avoid the grisly adver- 
 sary when they could. For this purpose, they put on the Noth- 
 hemd or shirt of need. It was supposed to cover the wearer with 
 invulnerability. The making of the garment was a difficult and 
 solemn matter. Several maidens of known integrity assembled 
 together on the eve of the Nativity, and wove and sewed together this 
 linen garment, in the name of the devil ! On the bosom of the 
 shirt were worked two heads ; one was long-bearded and covered 
 with the knightly helmet, the other was savage of aspect, and 
 crowned like the king of demons. A cross was worked on either 
 side. How this could save a warrior from a mortal stroke, it 
 would be difficult to say. If it was worn over the armor, perhaps 
 the helmeted e&gj was supposed to protect the warrior, and the 
 demoniacal one to affright his adversary. But then, this shirt 
 similarly made and adorned, was woven by ladies when about to 
 become mothers of knights or of common men. What use it could 
 be in such case, I leave to the " commeres" to settle. My own 
 vocation of " gossip" will not help me to the solution. 
 
70 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 But if chivalry had its shirts of need in Germany, to save from 
 death, in England and France it had its " mercy-knives" to swiftly 
 inflict it. Why they were so called I do not know, for after all 
 they were only employed in order to kill knights in full armor, by 
 plunging the knife through the bars of the visor into the eye. 
 After the battle of Pavia, many of the French were killed with 
 pickaxes by the peasantry, hacking and hewing through the joints 
 of the armor. 
 
 How anxious were the sires of those times to train their chil- 
 dren how best to destroy life ! This was more especially the case 
 among what were called the " half-christened Irish" of Connausrht. 
 In this province, the people left the right arms of their male infants 
 unchristened. They excepted that part coming under the divine 
 influences of baptism, in order that the children, when grown to 
 the stature of fighting men, might deal more merciless and deadly 
 blows. There was some such superstitious observance as this, I 
 think, in ancient Germany. It can not be said, in reference to the 
 suppressing of this observance, as was remarked by Stow after 
 the city authorities had put down the martial amusement of the 
 London apprentices — contending against one another of an even- 
 ing with cudgels and bucklers, while a host of admiring maids as 
 well as men stood by to applaud or censure — that the open pastime 
 being suppressed, worse practice within doors probably followed. 
 
 Stout fellows were some of the knights of the romantic period, 
 if we may believe half that is recorded of them. There is one, 
 Branor le Brun, who is famous for having been a living Quintain. 
 The game so called consists of riding at a heavy sack suspended 
 on a balanced beam, and getting out of its way, if possible, before 
 the revolving beam brought it round violently against the back of 
 the assailant's head. When Palamedes challenged old Branor, 
 the aged knight rather scornfully put him aside as an unworthy 
 yet valiant knight. Branor, however, offered to sit in his saddle 
 motionless, while Palamedes rode at him, and got unhorsed by 
 Branor's mere inert resistance. I forget how many knights 
 Branor le Brun knocked over their horses' cruppers, after this 
 quiet fashion. 
 
 It was not all courtesy in battle or in duel. Even Gyron, who 
 was called the " courteous," was a very " rough customer" indeed, 
 
DUELLING, DEATH AND BUEIAL. 71 
 
 when he had his hand on the throat of an antagonist. We hear 
 of him jumping with all his force upon a fallen and helpless foe, 
 tearing his helmet from its fastenings by main force, battering the 
 knight's face with it till he was senseless, and then beating on his 
 head with the pommel of his sword, till the wretched fellow was 
 dead. At this sort of pommelling there was never knight so ex- 
 pert as the great Bayard. The courtesy of the most savage in 
 fight, was however undeniable when a lady was in the case. Thus 
 we hear of a damsel coming to a fountain at which four knights 
 were sitting, and one of them wishes to take her. The other three 
 object, observing that the damsel is without a knight to protect 
 her, and that she is, therefore, according to the law of chivalry, 
 exempt from being attacked. And again, if a knight slew an ad- 
 versary of equal degree, he did not retain his sword if the latter 
 was a gift from some lady. The damsel, in such case, could claim 
 it, and no knight worthy of the name would have thought of refu- 
 sing to comply with her very natural request. Even ladies were 
 not to be won, in certain cases, except by valor ; as Arthur, that 
 king of knights, would not win, nor retain, Britain, by any other 
 means. The head of Bran the Blessed, it may be remembered, 
 was hidden in the White Hill, near London, where, as long as it 
 remained, Britain was invulnerable. Arthur, however removed 
 it. He scorned to keep the island by any other means than his 
 own sword and courage ; and he was ready to fight any man in 
 any quarrel. 
 
 Never did knight meet death more nobly than that Captain 
 Douglas, whose heroism is recorded by Sir William Temple, and 
 who " stood and burnt in one of our ships at Chatham, when his 
 soldiers left him, because it never should be said a Douglas quitted 
 his post without orders." Except as an example of heroic endu- 
 rance, this act, however, was in some degree a mistake, for the 
 state did not profit by it. There was something more profitable in 
 the act of Von Speyk, in our own time. When hostilities were 
 raging between Holland and Belgium, in 1831, the young Dutch 
 captain, just named, happened to be in the Scheldt, struggling in 
 his gun-boat against a gale which, in spite of all his endeavors and 
 seamanship, drove him ashore, under the guns of the Belgians. 
 A crowd of Belgian volunteers leaped aboard, ordered him to haul 
 
72 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 down his colors and surrender. Von Speyk hurried below to the 
 magazine, fell upon his knees in prayer, flung a lighted cigar into 
 an open barrel of powder, and blew his ship to atoms, with nearly 
 all who were on board. If he, by this sacrifice, prevented a 
 Dutch vessel from falling into the enemy's power, he also deprived 
 Holland of many good seamen. The latter country, however, only 
 thought of the unselfish act of heroism, in one who had been gra- 
 tuitously educated in the orphan house at Amsterdam, and who 
 acquitted his debt to his country, by laying down his life when 
 such sacrifice was worth making. His king and countrymen 
 proved that they could appreciate the noble act. The statue of 
 Von Speyk was placed by the side of that of De Ruyter, and the 
 government decreed that as long as a Dutch navy existed there 
 should be one vessel bearing the name of Von Speyk. 
 
 To return to the knights of earlier days, I will observe that in- 
 different as many of them were to meeting death, they, and indeed 
 other men of note, were very far from being so as to the manner 
 in which they should be disposed of after death. In their stone 
 or marble coffins, they lay in graves so shallow that the cover of 
 the coffin formed part of the pavement of the church. Whitting- 
 ham, the Puritan Dean of Durham, took up many of their coffins 
 and converted them into horse or swine troughs. This is the dean 
 who is said to have turned the finely-wrought holy-water vessels 
 into salting-tubs for his own use. 
 
 Modern knights have had other cares about their graves than 
 that alluded to above. Sir William Browne, for instance, one of 
 George II.'s knights, and a medical man of some repute, who died 
 in 1770, ordered by his will that when his coffin was lowered into 
 the grave, there should be placed upon it, " in its leathern case or 
 coffin, my pocket Elzevir Horace, comes vise vitaeque dulcis et 
 utilis, worn out with and by me." There was nothing more un- 
 reasonable in this than in a warrior-knight being buried with all 
 his weapons around him. And, with respect to warrior-knights 
 and what was done with them after death, I know nothing more 
 curious than what is told us by Stavely on the authority of Streder. 
 I will give it in the author's own words. 
 
 " Don John of Austria," says Stavely, " governor of the Nether- 
 lands for Philip II. of Spain, dying at his camp at Buge" (Bouges, 
 
DUELLING, DEATH AND BURIAL. 73 
 
 a mile from Namur), " was carried from thence to the great church 
 at Havre, where his funeral was solemnized and a monument to 
 posterity erected for him there by Alexander Farnese, the Prince 
 of Parma. Afterward his body was taken to pieces, and the bones, 
 packed in mails, were privately carried into Spain, where, being 
 set together with small wires, the body was rejointed again, which 
 being filled or stuffed with cotton, and richly habited, Don John 
 was presented to the King, entire, leaning upon his commander's 
 staff, and looking as if he were alive and breathing. Afterward 
 the corpse being earned to the Church of St. Laurence, at the 
 Escurial, was there buried near his father, Charles V., with a fit- 
 ting monument erected for him." 
 
 Considering that there was, and is, a suspicion that Philip II. 
 had poisoned his kinsman, the interview must have been a start- 
 ling one. But Philip II. was not, perhaps, so afraid of dead men 
 as the fourth Spanish king of that name. Philip IV., by no means 
 an unknightly monarch, was born on a Good Friday, and as there 
 is a Spanish superstition that they who are born on that day see 
 ghosts whenever they pass the place where any one has been killed 
 or buried, who died a violent death, this king fell into a habit of 
 carrying his head so high, in order to avoid seeing those spirits, 
 that his nose was continually en Vair, and he appeared to see no- 
 body. 
 
 Romance, and perhaps faithful history, are full of details of the 
 becoming deaths of ancient knights, upon the field. I question, 
 however, if even Sir Philip Sidney's was more dignified than that 
 of a soldier of the 58th infantry, recorded in Nichols's " Anecdotes 
 of the Eighteenth Century." A straggling shot had struck him in 
 the stomach. As he was too dreadfully wounded to be removed, 
 he desired his comrades would pray by him, and the whole guard 
 knelt round him in prayer till he died. Bishop Hurd remarked, 
 when this was told him, that " it was true religion." There was 
 more of religion in such sympathy than there was of taste in the 
 condolence of Alnwick, on the death of Hugh, Duke of Northum- 
 berland — a rather irascible officer, and Knight of the Garter. 
 " 0," cried the Alnwick poet — 
 
 "■O rueful sight ! Bebo]d. how lost to sense 
 The millions stand, suspended by suspense \" 
 
74 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 But all fruitlessly were the millions so suspended, for as the min- 
 strel remarked in his Threnodia — 
 
 "When Time shall yield to Death, Dukes must obey." 
 
 " Dying in harness," is a favorite phrase in chivalric annals to 
 illustrate the bravery of a knight falling in battle, " clothed in com- 
 plete steel." So to die, however, was not always to die in a fray. 
 Hume says of Seward, Earl of Northumberland, that there are 
 two circumstances related of him, " which discover his high sense 
 of honor and martial disposition. When intelligence was brought 
 to him of his son Osborne's death, he was inconsolable till he heard 
 the wound was received on his breast, and that he had behaved 
 with great gallantry in the action. When he found his own death 
 approaching, he ordered his servants to dress him in a complete 
 suit of armor, and sitting erect on the couch, with a spear in his 
 hand, declared that in that position, the only one worthy of a war- 
 rior, he would patiently await the fatal moment." 
 
 See how the chief of many a field 
 
 Prepares to give his latest breath ; 
 And, like a well-trimmed warrior, yield 
 
 Becomingly t' impending death — 
 That one, stern conqueror of all, 
 
 Of chieftain in embattled tower, 
 Of lord within his ancient hall, 
 
 And maiden in her trellised bower. 
 
 To meet that surest of all foes, 
 
 From off his soft and pillowed bed, 
 With dignity old Seward rose, 
 
 And to a couch of state was led. 
 Painting, yet firm of purpose there, 
 
 Stately as monarch on his throne, 
 Upright he sat, with kingly air, 
 
 To meet the coming foe, alone. 
 
 "Take from these limbs," he weakly cried, 
 
 " This soft and womanish attire ; 
 Let cloak and cap be laid aside — 
 
 Seward will die as died his sire : 
 Not clad in silken vest and shirt, 
 
 Like princes in a fairy tale ; 
 With iron be these old limbs girt — 
 
 My vest of steel, my shirt of mail. 
 
DUELLING, DEATH AND BURIAL. 75 
 
 " Close let my sheaf of arrows stand ; 
 
 My mighty battle-axe now bring ; 
 My ashen spear place in my hand ; 
 
 Around my neck my buckler sling. 
 Let my white locks once more be pressed 
 
 By the old cap of Milan steel ; 
 Such soldier's gear becomes them best — 
 
 They love their old defence to feel. 
 
 " 'Tis well ! Now buckle to my waist 
 
 My well-tried gleaming blade of Spain 
 My old blood leaps in joyful haste 
 
 To feel it on my thigh again. 
 And here this pendent loop upon, 
 
 Suspend my father's dagger bright ; 
 My spurs of gold, too, buckle on — 
 
 Or Seward dies not like a knight." 
 
 'Twas done. No tear bedimmed his eyes — 
 
 His manly heart had ne'er known fear ; 
 It answered not the deep-fetched sighs 
 
 Of friends and comrades standing near. 
 Death was upon him : that grim foe 
 
 Who smites the craven as the brave. 
 With patience Seward met the blow — 
 
 Prepared and willing for the grave. 
 
 The manner of the death, or rather of the dying of Seward, 
 Earl of Northumberland, was in part, unconsciously, imitated by 
 the great Mansfeldt. When the career of the latter was nearly at 
 its close, his fragile frame was already worn out by excess of action 
 — his once stout soul irritated by disappointment, and his former 
 vigorous constitution shattered by the ravages of a disease which 
 had long preyed on it in secret. The erst gallant knight lay help- 
 less in the miserable village of Zara, in Dalmatia. As he found 
 his last moment drawing near, he put on one of his richest uni- 
 forms, and girded his favorite sword to his side. It was the one 
 he most constantly carried in battle. Thus accoutrep, he sum- 
 moned his chief officers to attend him. He was held up by the 
 two whom he most wished to distinguish, because of their unwa- 
 vering fidelity. Thus upheld, he exhorted all to go on, unwearied, 
 in the path of glory ; and, living or dying, never to bate a breath 
 of inveterate hatred for Austria — whose government has been ac- 
 
76 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 cursed in all time, since there has been an Austria, for its unmiti- 
 gated infamy. " With the indifference of a man preparing for. a 
 journey of no extraordinary importance," thus speaks Naylor, 
 when describing the scene, " he continued tranquilly to converse 
 with his friends to the latest moment of his existence. His body 
 was interred with military pomp at Spalatio, in Dalmatia, at the 
 expense of the Venetians. Thus was the emperor delivered from 
 an enemy who, though often defeated, never ceased to be formida- 
 ble ; and whose transcendent genius was so fertile in resources, 
 that, without the smallest funds to support the expenses of war, he 
 maintained an honorable contest during seven campaigns' against 
 the most powerful monarchs in Europe." 
 
 His hour at length is come : 
 The hero of a hundred fields, 
 Who never yielded, only yields 
 
 To Him who rules the tomb. 
 
 He whose loud trumpet's blast, 
 Carried upon the trembling gale 
 The voice of death o'er hill and dale, 
 
 Is struck himself at last. 
 
 The same who, but of late, 
 Serenely saw destruction hurled, 
 And slaughter sweeping through the world, 
 
 Serenely meets his fate. 
 
 The spirit of the brave, 
 That led him o'er the embattled plain 
 'Gainst lines of foes, o'er countless slain, 
 
 Waits on him to the grave. 
 
 And with his latest breath 
 The warrior dons his proud array, 
 Prepared to meet, and to obey, 
 
 His last commander — Death! 
 
 The mournful tears and sighs 
 Fall not for him who, like the swan, 
 Wears his best plumes, sings sweetly on, 
 Sounds his last song — and dies ! 
 
 With regard to the burial of knights, we may observe that, down 
 to a comparatively late period the knights and barons of England 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 77 
 
 were buried with much solemn splendor. At the obsequies of a 
 baron, there was an official present who wore the armor of the 
 defunct, mounted a horse in full trappings, and carried the banner, 
 shield, and helmet, of the deceased. So, in Henry the Eighth's 
 time, Lord William Courtney was buried with the ceremonies ob- 
 served at the funeral of an earl, to which rank it had been the 
 king's intention to elevate him. On this occasion Sir Edmund 
 Carew, a gallant knight, rode into the church in full armor, with 
 the point of his battle-axe downward — a token, like a reversed 
 torch, of death. 
 
 The latest instance I have met with of a union of ancient and 
 modern customs at the burial of a knight, occurred at Treves, in 
 1781, at the interment of the Teutonic knight, General Frederick 
 Casimir. This gallant soldier's charger was led to the brink of 
 the grave in which the body had just been deposited ; the throat 
 of the steed was swiftly cut by an official, and the carcass of the 
 horse was flung down upon the coffin of the knight. Such sacri- 
 fices were once common enough. At the funerals in England of 
 cavalry soldiers, or of mounted officers, the horse is still proces- 
 sionally conducted to the brink of the grave, but we are too wisely 
 economical to leave him there, or to fling him into it. 
 
 Where chivalry had great perils and temptations, we need not 
 be surprised to find that there were many scions of noble houses 
 who either declined to win spurs by encountering mortal danger, 
 or who soon grew weary of making the attempt. Let us, then, 
 consider the unambitious gentlemen who grew " tired of it." 
 
78 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW " TIRED OF IT." 
 
 " How blest are they that waste their weary hours 
 In solemn groves and solitary bower 
 "Where neither eye nor ear 
 Can see or hear 
 The frantic mirth 
 And false delights of frolic earth ; 
 Where they may sit and pant, 
 And breathe their pursy souls ; 
 "Where neither grief consumes, nor gaping want 
 Afflicts, nor sullen care controls ! 
 Away false joys ! Ye murder where ye kiss ; 
 There is no heaven to that, no life to this." 
 
 Fkancis Quarles. 
 
 As marriage or the cloister was the alternative submitted to 
 most ladies in the days of old, so young men of noble families had 
 small choice but between the church and chivalry. Some, indeed, 
 commenced with arms, won knightly honors, cared nothing for 
 them when they had obtained the prize, and took up the clerical 
 profession, or entered monasteries. There are many distinguished 
 examples. There was first St. Mochua or Cluanus, who, after 
 serving in arms with great distinction, entered a monastery and 
 took to building churches and establishing cities. Of the former 
 he built no less than thirty ; and he passed as many years in one 
 church as he had built of churches themselves. He was the found- 
 er of one hundred and twenty cells. He is to be looked upon with 
 respect. Old warriors in our own days are often moved by the same 
 impulse which governed Mochua ; and when we see retired admi- 
 rals taking the chair at meetings where Dr. Cumming is about to 
 exhibit ; or infirm major-generals supporting, with unabated men- 
 tal energy, their so-called Puseyite pastors, we only look upon men 
 who, acting conscientiously, are worthy of respect, and are such 
 Mochuas as modern times and circumstances will admit of. 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OF IT." 79 
 
 We have another example in Adelard, the cousin of Charle- 
 magne. He was a gay and gallant chevalier at his imperial cous- 
 in's court, and there was no stouter wielder of a sword in all the 
 army ; but Alard, or Adelard, grew weary of camp and court alike. 
 He fled from some very pretty temptations in the one, as well as great 
 perils in the other. The young prince, he was only twenty, took 
 the monastic habit at Corbie, where he was employed as a garden- 
 er, and spoiled cartloads of vegetables before he got his hand and 
 his thoughts to his new profession. He was occasionally busy too 
 in the kitchen, but not to the visible gratification of the monks. 
 Charlemagne often insisted on his appearing at court, where at last 
 he held one or two high offices ; and, when he left, wrote a book 
 for the guidance of courtiers generally, by which the latter as little 
 profited, say wicked wits, as other nobility, for whom a nation has 
 long prayed that grace, wisdom, and understanding might be their 
 portion. St. Adelard, for the imperial knight was canonized, lived 
 to be the chief authority in the monastery where he had commenced 
 as cook and gardener, and St. Gerard composed an office in his 
 honor, in gratitude for having been cured of a violent headache 
 through the saint's interposition. This seems to me one of the 
 oddest ways of showing gratitude for a small service that I ever 
 heard of. 
 
 I believe that St. Cedcl, Bishop of London, in very early days, 
 was also of a family whose profession was military. When or 
 why he entered the church I do not know ; but he has some con- 
 nection with military matters in the fact that Tilbury Fort occu- 
 pies part of the site of a monastery which St. Cedd had founded, 
 in which he resided, and which was the pride of all the good people 
 in the then pleasant and prosperous city of Tillabury. 
 
 Touching St. Aldric, Bishop of Mans, there is no doubt what- 
 ever. He was of a noble family, and commenced life at twelve 
 years old, as page to Louis le Debonnaire, at the court of Charle- 
 magne. He was speedily sick of the court, and as speedily sick 
 of the camp. At the age of twenty-one he withdrew to Metz, en- 
 tered the clerical profession, and became chaplain and confessor to 
 the sovereign whom he had once served as page. His military 
 training made him a very sharp disciplinarian during the quarter 
 of a century that he was bishop ; and it is only to be regretted that 
 
80 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 he had not some influence over the king whose conscience he di- 
 rected, and of whom a legend will be found in another part of this 
 volume. 
 
 There was a second son of Eric, King of Denmark, known by 
 the name of St. Knudt or Canute. He was Duke of Schleswig, 
 and was much more of a monk than a duke. He was canonized 
 accordingly for his virtues. He had a rough way of joking. His 
 knights were nothing better than robbers and pirates, and he re- 
 solved to make them forswear violence and live peaceably. They 
 represented, in vain, that they had a right to live as became 
 knights, which Canute did not dispute ; he simply dissented from 
 the construction of the right as set down by the knights themselves. 
 To prevent all mistakes on the matter, he one day condemned 
 seven of these gentlemen to be hanged for acts of piracy. One of 
 these exclaimed that, " fitting as the sentence might be for his fel- 
 lows, there must necessarily be exemption for him." He was like 
 the German corporal in the " Etoile du Nord," who can very well 
 understand that it is quite proper that a man should be hanged, 
 but could not comprehend that he himself should be the man. The 
 Schleswig knight claimed special exemption on the ground that he 
 was a kinsman of Canute. The latter allowed that this entitled 
 him to some distinction, and the saintly duke hung his cousin six 
 feet higher than any of his accomplices. 
 
 We come back more immediately to a knight who grew tired 
 of his vocation, in the person of Nathalan, a Scottish noble of the 
 fifth century. He sold arms, horses, and estate, divided the pro- 
 ceeds among the poor, and devoted himself to preparations for or- 
 dination, and the cultivation of vegetables. He bears a highly 
 respectable reputation on the roll of Bishops of Aberdeen. 
 
 "We meet with a man more famous, in Peter of Sebaste, whose 
 pedigree showed more heroes than could be boasted by any of 
 Peter's contemporaries. He is not an example, indeed, of a man 
 quitting the camp for the cloister ; but he and two of his brothers 
 exhibit to us three individuals who might have achieved great 
 worldly profit, by adopting arms as a vocation, but who preferred 
 the Church, and became, all three, bishops. 
 
 We have a similar example in the Irish St. Felan. His high 
 birth and great wealth would have made him the flower of Irish 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OF IT." 81 
 
 chivalry, but he selected another profession, and despising chivalry, 
 entered the Church. He went a Mundo ad Mundum, for it was 
 from the hands of Abbot Mundus that he received the monastic 
 habit. Thus, as it was wittily said, the world (Mundus) at once 
 drove and drew him into the Church. It is clear, however, that, like 
 the old war-horse, he pricked up his ears at the sound of battle, 
 and took an interest in stricken fields. To such conclusion we 
 must come, if it be true, as is asserted of him, that the battle of 
 Bannockburn, in 1314, was won by Bruce through the saint's es- 
 pecial intercession. The Dukes of Normandy owed equal obliga- 
 tions to St. Vaneng, who unbuckled the armor from his aristocratic 
 loins, to cover them with a frock ; and built churches for the Nor- 
 mans, where he offered up continual prayer for the Norman 
 dukes. 
 
 Then again, there was William. Berringer, of the family of the 
 Counts of Nevers. No persuasion could induce the handsome 
 William to continue in the career he had embraced, the career of 
 chivalry and arms. His uncle, Peter the Hermit, may have had 
 considerable influence over him, and his change of profession was 
 by no means unprofitable, for the once horse-loving William be- 
 came Archbishop of Bourges : and he defended the rights of his 
 Church against kings and councils with as much boldness, zeal, 
 and gallantry, as any knight could have exhibited against the stout- 
 est of assailants. 
 
 Among our English saints, the one who most nearly resembles 
 him is St. Egwin, who was of the royal blood of the Mercian kings, 
 and who, after a short trial of the profession of arms, retired to the 
 cloister, but was ultimately raised to the see of Worcester. The 
 spirit of the man may perhaps be seen through the legend which 
 says that on setting out on a penitential pilgrimage to Rome, he 
 put iron shackles on his legs, the key of which shackles he flung 
 into the Avon. This is very possible ; but when we are told that 
 on requiring the key at a subsequent period, he found it inside a 
 fish, we see that the author of the legend has plagiarized from the 
 original constructor of the story of Polycrates and his ring. 
 
 St. Egwin was far less a benefactor to his fellow-men that St. 
 Benedict Biscop, a noble knight of the court of Oswi, the pious 
 king of the Northumbrians. When Benedict, or Bennet, as he is 
 
 6 
 
OZ THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 familiarly called, retired from the profession of arms to follow that 
 of the Church, he continued quite as active, and twice as useful, 
 as he had been before. He was a great traveller, spent and gave 
 liberally, and brought over with him, from the continent, workers 
 in stone to erect that monastery at Weremouth which, in its ruins, 
 commemorates his name and deeds. He also brought from France 
 the first glaziers who ever exercised the art of glass-making in 
 England. Altogether St. Bennet is one of those who find means 
 to effect good to others, whatever may be the position they are in 
 themselves. 
 
 Aelred of Bidal was a man of similar quality. He was a young 
 North-of-England noble, when he figured as the handsomest cava- 
 lier at the court of that " sair saint to the Church," the Scottish 
 king, David. He was remarkable for his good temper, and was 
 as well-disciplined a monk as he had been a military man ; for 
 when he once happened to inadvertently break the rule of perma- 
 nent silence, which prevailed in the monastery at Ridal, into 
 which he entered at the age of twenty-five, he became so horror- 
 stricken that he was eager to increase the penalty put upon him 
 in consequence. He had only dropped a single word in the gar- 
 den, to a monk who, like himself, had been a knight, but who gave 
 him in return so edifying a scowl, that in an instant poor Aelred 
 felt all the depth of his unutterable iniquity, and accounted himself 
 as criminal as if he had set fire to the neighboring nunnery. He 
 never afterward allowed himself the indulgence of reading his fa- 
 vorite Cicero, but confined his reading to his own work " On Spir- 
 itual Friendship," and other books of a similar description. 
 
 The great St. Hilary was another of the men of noble family 
 following arms as a vocation, who gave up the profession for that 
 of the Church, and prospered remarkably in consequence. St. 
 Felix of Nola affords us an additional illustration of this fact. Tins 
 noble young soldier found no happiness in the business of slaugh- 
 tering, and all the sophistry in the world could not persuade him 
 that it was honorable. "It is a disgusting business," said the 
 Saint, " and as I can hot be Felix [happy] in performing it, I will 
 see if I can not be Felix in the Church ;" and the punning saint 
 found what he sought. 
 
 There is something more wonderful in the conversion of St. 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OF IT." 83 
 
 Maurus. He was the son of a nobleman, had St. Benedict for a 
 tutor, and was destined to the career of arms. The tutor, how- 
 ever, having awoke him one night, and sent him to pick a monk 
 out of the river, whom Benedict, in a dream, had seen fall in, 
 Maurus, although no swimmer, obeyed, walked upon the surface 
 of the water, pulled out the struggling monk, walked back with 
 him, arm-in-arm, to the shore, and immediately concluded that he 
 was called to another vocation than that of arms. As for St. John 
 Calybyte, he would not be a soldier, but ran away from home be- 
 fore his wealthy sire could procure him a commission, and only 
 returned to stand, disguised as a mendicant, in front of his father's 
 house, where he received alms till he died. A curious example 
 of idiosyncrasy. St. Honoratus was wiser. He was of a consular 
 family ; but, in declining the military profession, he addressed him- 
 self with sincerity to be useful in the Church ; and the well-de- 
 served result was that he became Archbishop of Aries. St. 
 Anthony, the patriarch of monks, made still greater sacrifices, and 
 chose rather to be a hermit than a commander of legions. St. 
 Sulpicius, the Debonnair, was both rich and good-looking, but he 
 cared less for helmet and feathers than for cord and cowl, and the 
 archbishopric of Bourges rewarded his self-denial. There was 
 more than one King Canute too, who, though not surrendering 
 royalty and generalship of armies, seemed really more inclined, 
 and indeed more fitted, to be studious monks than chivalrous mon- 
 archs. Wulstan of Worcester was far more decided, for finding 
 himself, one night, most warmly admiring the young lady who was 
 his vis-a-vis in a dance, the gallant officer was so shocked at the 
 impropriety, that he made it an excuse for taking to the cowl forth- 
 with. He did not so ill by the exchange, for the cowl brought 
 him to the mitre at Worcester. 
 
 St. Sebastian was a far bolder man, seeing that although he 
 hated a military life, he, to the very utmost, did his duty in that 
 state of life to which it had pleased God to call him ; and if half 
 be true of what is told of him, there never was knight of the actual 
 days of chivalry who performed such bold and perilous actions as 
 St. Sebastian. What was a cavalier, pricking against a dragon, 
 to a Roman officer preaching Christianity to his men, under 
 Diocletian ? 
 
84 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 In later days we meet with St. Raymund of Pennafort, the 
 wealthy young lord, who, rather than serve for pay or plunder, 
 went about teaching philosophy for nothing. St. John, the Patri- 
 arch of Alexandria, might have been known as a conqueror, but 
 he preferred being handed down, under the title of the Almoner. 
 He was like that St. Cadoc who chose rather to be abbot in, than 
 prince of, Wales. St. Poppo of Stavelo exhibited similar humil- 
 ity. He was rapidly rising in the Flandrian army when he sud- 
 denly sunk into a cell, and became a sort of Flemish John Wesley. 
 He preached against all tournaments, but only succeeded in abol- 
 ishing the very exciting combats between a knight and a bear, 
 which were greatly patronized by Flemish ladies, and at which 
 parties staked great sums upon their favorite animal. 
 
 St. Francis of Sales, on the other hand, that gentlemanly saint, 
 was saved from the knightly career which his noble birth seemed to 
 promise him, by a vow made by his mother, before he was born. 
 She was resolved that he should be a saint and not a soldier, and 
 as all things went as the lady desired, she placed her son in a posi- 
 tion direct for the Church, and the world certainly lost nothing by 
 the matron's proceeding. I respect St. Francis of Sales all the 
 more that he had small human failings, and did not scatter damna- 
 tion over men whom he saw in a similar concatenation. Sulpicius 
 Severus was, in many respects, like him, save that he had some 
 experience of a soldier's life. But he laid down the sword for the 
 pen, and gave us that admirable historical romance, in which he 
 details so graphically the life of another noble warrior, who quitted 
 the command of soldiers, to take up the teaching of men — St. 
 Martin of Tours. 
 
 There was a lady, St. Aldegonde, of the royal blood of France, 
 in the seventh century, who at least encouraged young knights to 
 abandon their fancied vocation, and assume that of monks or friars. 
 She was, most undeservedly, I dare say, assailed by scandalizing 
 tongues accordingly. Indeed, I never heard of lady more perse- 
 cuted in this way, except perhaps this particular lady's namesake, 
 who once belonged to the gay troupe of the Varietes, and to whom 
 the most rattling of chansonniers alluded, in the line of a song, 
 which put the significant query of 
 
 Que fait Aldegonde avec le nionde entier ? 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OF IT." 85 
 
 One of the most remarkable features in the characters of "many 
 of these young nobles who were disinclined to take up arms, or 
 who laid them down for the religious vocation, is the dread they 
 entertained of matrimony. In illustration of this fact, I may notice 
 the case of St. Silvin of Auchy. There was not a gayer or braver 
 knight at the court of Childeric IL, nor a more welcome wooer 
 among the ladies. In due time he proposed to a noble maiden, 
 who was in a flutter of happiness at the thought of carrying off 
 such a bachelor from a host of competitors. The wedding was 
 brilliant, up to the conclusion of the ceremony. That over, no 
 persuasion could induce the bridegroom to go to the breakfast. 
 As he had been brought to the altar, there he was resolved to re- 
 main. He denounced all weddings as wicked vanities, and dart- 
 ing out of the church-door, left bride and bridal party to take what 
 course they would. There was no end of conjectures as to the 
 cause of the sudden fright which had seized upon the young bride- 
 groom. The latter set it down to inspiration, and as he took to 
 the cowl and led a most exemplary life, no one presumed to doubt 
 it, except the bride and her relations. 
 
 The case of St. Licinius is easier of explanation. He was the 
 most rollicking knight-bachelor at the court of Clotaire I. It 
 must, however, be said for him that he sowed his wild oats early, 
 and fought none the less stoutly for going to mass daily, and con- 
 fessing once a quarter. He was rich, and had a maiden neighbor 
 who was richer. The families of knight and maiden were united 
 in thinking that the estates of the two, encircled in one ring fence, 
 would be one of the most desirable of consummations. The 
 maiden was nothing loath, the knight alone was reluctant. He 
 too, had Ins doubts about the excellence of marriage, and it was 
 only with very considerable difficulty he was brought to woo the 
 lady, who said " Yes" before the plume in his bonnet had touched 
 the ground when he made his bow to her. The wedding-day was 
 fixed, and as the old epitaph says, " wedding-clothes provided." 
 On the eve of the eventful day, however, Licinius, on paying a 
 visit to the bride, found her suddenly attacked with leprosy. The 
 doctor protested that it would be nothing, but Licinius declared 
 that it was a warning which he dared not neglect. He looked at 
 the leprous lady, muttered the word "unpleasant," and at once 
 
86 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 betook himself, not to active military life, but to a religious mission. 
 In this occupation he is alleged to have performed such miracles 
 as to deserve canonization, if only the half of them were true. 
 
 Now, a bride afflicted with leprosy may fairly be said to be an 
 unpleasant sight. Licinius may even be considered authorized to 
 hesitate in performing his promise, if not in altogether declaring 
 off. We can not say as much in extenuation of another knight 
 who broke his word to a lady, and was clapped into the Roman 
 calendar of deified men. This gentleman in question had a rather 
 unchristian-sounding name. He was called Abraham of Chiduna. 
 At tilt and tournament, and in tented field, there was no cavalier 
 who sat more perfectly hi saddle, or handled his lance and wielded 
 his battle-axe with more terrible effect. He was of noble birth, of 
 course ; was wealthy, somewhat addicted to light living, in his salad 
 days, but a man who lived soberly enough when those were over. 
 He then resolved to marry, and he had the " good taste," if one 
 may use a term which, we are told, belongs to the literary milliner's 
 vocabulary, to offer himself to, and ask the hand of a very pious 
 maiden with a highly satisfactory dower. The required conclusion 
 was soon come to, and one fine spring morning saw the two prin- 
 cipals and their respective friends in church. The knight, it is 
 true, was the last to arrive, and he had been, previously, as unwil- 
 ling to get up and be married, as Master Barnardine was to get 
 up and be hanged. He was finally brought to the altar, and after 
 some little delay, such as searching for the ring which he had mis- 
 placed, and only recovered after much search, the nuptial knot 
 was tied. When this had been accomplished, surrounding friends 
 approached to offer their congratulations ; but the icy Abraham 
 coldly waved them back, and announced his determination, then 
 and there, to end his short-lived married state. As he immediately 
 rushed into the wood which was in the vicinity of the church, 
 there was a universal cry that he contemplated suicide. The 
 bride was conveyed home amid much sympathy, and a general 
 but an ineffectual search was made for the " groom." Yet, not 
 altogether ineffectual, for at the end of seventeen days he was dis- 
 covered, offering up his orisons, in the midst of a marsh. There 
 he had been, he said, for a fortnight, and there he declared he 
 would remain, unless those who sought him consented to the terms 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OF IT." 87 
 
 he should propose. These were, that he should be allowed to 
 retire to a cell which should be entirely walled up, save a small 
 square aperture for a window. The agreement was ratified, and 
 Abraham was shut up according to his desire ; and by a long life 
 of seclusion, passed in preaching to all who approached the win- 
 dow, and taking in all they brought through the same aperture, 
 Abraham has had " Beatus" attached to his name, and that name 
 has been recorded upon the roll of saints. 
 
 If there be any reader who objects to this story as unnatural, I 
 would remark to the same, that similar incidents may be met with 
 in our own time. In proof thereof I will briefly relate an anecdote 
 which was told me by the reverend father of a legal knight, who 
 was himself the officiating minister at the ceremony of which I 
 am about to speak. 
 
 To the clergyman of a pretty village in Wales, due notice had 
 been given, and all prehminary legal observances having been 
 fulfilled, he awaited in his vestry, ready to marry an ex-sergeant 
 and one of the girls of the village. The canonical hours were 
 fast gliding away, and yet the priest was not summoned to the 
 altar. By certain sounds he could tell that several persons had 
 assembled in the church, and he had two or three times seen a 
 pretty face peeping in at the vestry-door, with a look upon it of 
 pleasure to see that he was still there, and of perplexity as if there 
 was something to be told which only waited to be asked for. At 
 half-past eleven the face again peeped in, whereupon the clergy- 
 man invited the owner of it to approach nearer. The invitation 
 was obeyed, and the clergyman inquired the reason for the unu- 
 sual delay, remarking at the same time, that if the parties were 
 not speedily prepared it would be too late to perform the ceremony 
 that day. 
 
 " Well sir," said the nymph, " I was about asking your advice. 
 I am the bride's sister ; and there is a difficulty — " 
 
 " What is it ?" asked the priest. 
 
 " Just this, sir," said Jenny. " Sergeant Jones has promised to 
 marry sister Winnifred if father will put down five pounds. 
 Father agrees ; but he says that if he puts down the money before 
 the marriage, the sergeant will walk off. And the sergeant will 
 not come up to be married till the money is put down. So, you 
 
88 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 see, sir, we are in a terrible difficulty ; and we want you to pro- 
 pose a method to get us out of it." 
 
 " There is nothing easier," said the minister ; " let your father 
 put the money into the hands of a trusty third person, who will 
 promise to place it in the sergeant's possession as soon as he has 
 married your sister." 
 
 Jenny Morgan saw the excellence of the device in a moment, 
 rushed back to the bridal parties, and they showed their apprecia- 
 tion of the clergyman's suggestion, by crowding to the altar as 
 soon as the preliminary proceeding recommended to them had 
 been accomplished. At length the clergyman came to the words, 
 " Wilt thou have tins woman to thy wedded wife ?" 
 
 " Jack," said the ex-sergeant, looking round at the stake-holder, 
 " have you got the cash ?" 
 
 "All right!" nodded Jack. 
 
 " Then I will," said the sergeant ; " and now, Jack, hand over 
 the tin" 
 
 The agreement was rigidly fulfilled ; but had not the minister 
 thought of the means which solved the difficulty, Sergeant Jones 
 would have been nearly as ungallant to his lady as Abraham, 
 Silvin, and Licinius, had been to theirs. 
 
 But to return to Abraham. I have said this knight, on assuming 
 his monkly character, had caused himself to be Availed up in his 
 cell. I have my suspicions, however, that it was a theatrical sort 
 of wall, for it is very certain that the saint could pass through it. 
 Now, there resided near him a lady recluse who was his " niece," 
 and whose name was Mary. The two were as inseparable as the 
 priest Lacombe and Madame Guyon ; and probably were as little 
 deserving of reproach. This Mary was the original of " Little 
 Red Riding Hood." She used to convey boiled milk and butter, 
 and other necessary matters to her uncle Abraham. Now it hap- 
 pened that the ex-knight used also to be visited by a monk whose 
 name was Wolf, or who, at all events, has been so called by hagi- 
 ographers, on account of his being quite as much of a beast as the 
 quadruped so called. The monk was wont to fall in with Mary 
 as she was on her way to her uncle's cell with pleasant condiments 
 under a napkin, in a wicker-basket. He must have been a monk 
 of the Count Ory fashion, and he was as seductive as Ponchard, 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OF IT." 89 
 
 when singing " Gentille Annette" to the " Petit Chaperon Rouge," 
 in Boieldieu's Opera. The result was, that the monk carried off 
 Mary to a neighboring city — Edessa, if I remember rightly — and 
 if I am wrong, Mr. Mitchell Kemble will, perhaps, set me right, 
 in his bland and gentleman-like way. The town-life led by these 
 two was of the most disgraceful nature ; and when the monk had 
 grown tired of it, he left Mary to lead a worse, without him. 
 Mary became the " Reine Pomare," the " Mogadore," the " Rose 
 Pomponne" of Edessa, and was the terror of all families where 
 there were elder sons and latch-keys. Her doings and her where- 
 abouts at length reached the ears of her uncle Abraham, and not 
 a little astonished were those who knew the recluse to see him one 
 morning, attired in a pourpoint of rich stuff, with a cloak like 
 Almaviva's, yellow buskins with a fall of lace over the tops, a 
 jaunty cap and feather on his head, a rapier on his thigh, and a 
 steed between his legs, which curveted under his burden as though 
 the fun of the thing had given it lightness. At Mary's supper, 
 this cavalier was present on the night of his arrival in Edessa. 
 He scattered his gold like a Crcesus, and Mary considered him 
 worth all the more penniless knights put together. When these 
 had gone, as being less welcome, Abraham declared his relation- 
 ship, and acted on the right it gave him to rate a niece who was 
 not only an ungrateful minx, but who was as mendacious as an 
 ungrateful niece could well be. The old gentleman, however, had 
 truth on his side, and finally so overwhelmed Mary with its terrible 
 application, that she meekly followed him back to the desert, and 
 passed fifteen years in a walled-up cell close to that of her uncle. 
 The miracles the two performed are adduced as proofs of the 
 genuineness of the personages and their story ; matters which I 
 would not dispute even if I had room for it. 
 
 The next knight whom I can call to mind as having been fright- 
 ened by marriage into monkery, is St. Vandrille, Count of the 
 Palace to King Dagobert. During the period of his knightship 
 he was a very Don Juan for gallantry, and railed against matri- 
 mony as conclusively as a Malthusian. His friends pressed him 
 to marry nevertheless ; and introduced him to a lady with a hun- 
 dred thousand golden qualities, and prospects as auriferous as those 
 of Miss Kilmansegg. He took the lady's hand with a reluctance 
 
90 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 that might be called aversion, and which he did not affect to con- 
 ceal. When the nuptial ceremony was concluded, Knight Van- 
 drille, as eccentric as the cavaliers whose similar conduct I have 
 already noticed, mildly intimated that it was not his intention to 
 proceed further, and that for his part, he had renounced the vani- 
 ties of this world for aye. Taking the lady apart, he appears to 
 have produced upon her a conviction that the determination was 
 one he could not well avoid ; and we are not told that she even 
 reproached him for a conduct which seems to me to have been a 
 thousand times more selfish and inexcusable than that of the clever 
 but despicable Abelard. The church, however, did not disapprove 
 of the course adopted, and St. Yandrille, despite his worse than 
 breach of promise, has been forgiven as knight, and canonized as 
 saint. 
 
 Far more excusable was that little Count of Arian, Elzear, the 
 boy-knight at the court of Charles II., King of Sicily, whom that 
 monarch married at the age of thirteen years, to Delphina of 
 Glandeves, a young lady of fifteen. When I say far more excu- 
 sable, I do Elzear some injustice, for the boy was willing enough 
 to be wed, and looked forward to making his lady proud of his 
 own distinction as a knight. Delphina, however, it was who pro- 
 posed that they should part at the altar, and never meet again. 
 She despised the boy, and the little cavalier took it to heart — so 
 much so, that he determined to renounce the career of arms and 
 enter the church. Thereby chivalry lost a worthy cavalier, and 
 the calendar gained a very active saint. 
 
 Elzear might well feel aggrieved. There have been knights 
 even younger than he, who have carried spurs before they were 
 thirteen. This reminds me of a paragraph in an article which I 
 contributed to " Fraser's Magazine," in March, 1844, under the 
 title of "A Walk across Bohemia," in which, speaking of the 
 Imperial Zeughaus at Vienna, I noticed " the suit of armor of that 
 little hero, the second Louis of Hungary, he who came into this 
 breathing world some months before he was welcome, and who 
 supported his character for precocity by marrying at twelve, and 
 becoming the legitimate bearer of all the honors of paternity as 
 soon as he entered his teens ; who moreover maintained his con- 
 sistency by turning a gray old man at sixteen, and finally termi- 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OF IT." 91 
 
 nated his ephemeral course on the field of battle before he became 
 of age." Elzear then was not, perhaps, so poor a knight as his 
 older lady seemed disposed to count him. 
 
 I must be briefer with noticing the remaining individuals who 
 either flung up chivalry for the Church, or who preferred the latter 
 to following a knightly career. First, there was St. Anscharius, 
 who after he had made the change alluded to, was standing near 
 the easy Olas, King of Sweden, when the latter cast lots to decide 
 whether Christianity should be the religion of the state, or not. 
 We are told that the prayers of St. Anscharius caused the king to 
 throw double-sixes in favor of the better cause. 
 
 St. Andrew Cossini made an admirable saint after being the 
 most riotous of cavaliers. So St. Amandus of Nantes won his 
 saintship by resigning his lordship over men-at-arms. Like him 
 was that St. Romuald of the family of the Dukes of Ravenna, who, 
 whether fighting or hunting, loved to retire from the fray and the 
 chase, to pray at peace, in shady places. St. John of Malta and 
 St. Stephen of Grandmont were men of the like kidney. St. Ben- 
 edict of Anian was that famous cup-bearer of. Charlemagne, who 
 left serving the Emperor in hall and field, to serve a greater mas- 
 ter with less ostentation. He followed the example of that St. 
 Auxentius, who threw up his commission in the equestrian guard 
 of Theodosius the Younger, to take service in a body of monks. 
 
 Many of those who renounced arms, or would not assume mili- 
 tary service when opportunity offered itself, profited personally by 
 the adoption of such a course. Thus St. Porphyrius was a knight 
 till he was twenty-five years of age, and he died Bishop of Gaza. 
 The knight St. Wulfran became Bishop of Sens. St. Hugh won 
 the bishopric of Grenoble, by not only renouncing knighthood him- 
 self, but by inducing his father to follow his example. St. Norbert 
 became Archbishop of Magdeburg, after leading a jolly life, not 
 only as a knight but as priest. A fall from his horse brought him 
 to a sense of decency. A prophecy of a young maiden to St. Ulric 
 gained him his saintship and the bishopric of Augsburg. Had she 
 not foretold he would die a bishop, he would have been content 
 to carry a banner. Examples like these are very numerous, but 
 I have cited enough. 
 
 Few in a worldly sense made greater sacrifice than St. Casimir, 
 
92 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 son of Casimir III., King of Poland. He so loved his reverend 
 tutor, Dugloss, that, to be like him, he abandoned even his chance 
 of the throne, and became a priest. St. Benedict of Umbria took 
 a similar course, upon a smaller scale ; and not all the persuasions 
 of his nurse, who ran after him when he ran away from home, 
 could induce him to be anything but a priest. St. Herman Joseph, 
 of Cologne, showed how completely he had abandoned the knightly 
 character, when, as monk, he begged the peasants whom he taught, 
 to be good enough to buffet him well, and cuff him soundly, as it 
 was impossible for him to have a sufficiency of kicks and contempt. 
 St. Guthlac, the noble hermit of Croyland, evinced more dignity 
 in his retirement, and the same may be said of St. Peter Regalati, 
 and St. Ubaldus of Gabio. The latter was resolute neither to 
 marry nor take arms. He liked no turmoil, however qualified. 
 St. Vincent of Lerins did bear arms for years, but he confessed he 
 did not like the attendant dangers — threatening him spiritually, 
 not bodily, and he took the cowl and gained a place in the sacred 
 calendar accordingly. St. Aloysius Gonzaga, whose father was a 
 prince, was another of the young gentlemen for whom arms had 
 little attraction. The humility of this young gentleman, however, 
 had a very silly aspect, if it all resembled what is said of him by 
 Father Caperius. "He never looked on women, kept his eye 
 strictly guarded, and generally cast down ; would never stay with 
 his mother alone in her chamber, and if she sent in any message 
 to him by some lady in her company, he received it, and gave his 
 answer in a few words, with his eyes shut, and his chamber-door 
 only half open ; and when bantered on that score, he ascribed such 
 behavior to his bashfulness. It was owing to his original modesty 
 that he did not know by their face many ladies among his own re- 
 lations, with whom he had frequently conversed ; and that he was 
 afraid and ashamed to let a footman see so much as his foot un- 
 covered." Whatever the soft Aloysius may have been fit for, it is 
 clear that he was not fit for chivalry. Something akin to him 
 was St. Theobald of Champagne, who probably would never have 
 been a saint, if his father had not ordered him to lead a body of 
 troops to the succor of a beleaguered cousin. Theobald declined, 
 and at once went into a monastery. 
 
 St. Walthen, one of the sons of the Earl of Huntingdon, and 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OF IT." 93 
 
 Maud, daughter of Judith, which Judith was the niece of the Con- 
 queror, only narrowly escaped being a gallant knight. As a boy, 
 indeed, he used to build churches with his box of bricks, while 
 his brothers built castles ; but at least he gave promise of being 
 a true knight, and, once, not only accepted the gift of a ring from 
 a lady, but wore the sparkling diamond on his finger. " Ah ! ah !" 
 exclaimed the saucy courtiers, " Knight Walthen is beginning to 
 have a tender heart for the ladies !" Poor Walthen ! he called 
 this a devil's chorus, tossed the ring into the fire, broke the lady's 
 heart, and went into a monastery for the remainder of his days. 
 He escaped better than St. Clarus, who had a deaf ear and stone- 
 blind eyes for the allurements of a lady of quality, and who only 
 barely escaped assassination, at the hands of two ruffians hired by 
 the termagant to kill the man who was above allowing her holy 
 face to win from him a grin of admiration. But though I could 
 fill a formidable volume with names of ci-devant knights who have 
 turned saints, I will spare my readers, and conclude with the great 
 name of St. Bernard. He did not, indeed, take up arms, but when 
 he adopted a religious profession, he enjoyed the great triumph of 
 inducing his uncle, all his brothers, knights, and simple officers, to 
 follow his example. The uncle Gualdri, a famous swordsman and 
 seigneur of Touillon, was the first who was convinced that Bernard 
 was right. The two younger brothers of the latter, Bartholomew 
 and Andrew, next knocked off their spurs and took to their bre- 
 viary. Guy, the eldest brother, a married man, of wealth, broke 
 up his household, sold his armor, sent his lady to a convent and 
 his daughters to a nunnery, put on the cowl, and followed St. Ber- 
 nard. Others of his family and many of his friends followed his 
 example, with which I conclude my record of saints who have had 
 any connection with arms. As for St. Bernard, I will say of him, 
 that had he assumed the sword and been as merciless to his ene- 
 mies as he was, in his character of abbot, without bowels of com- 
 passion for an adversary whom he could crush by wordy argu- 
 ment, he would have been the most terrible cavalier that ever sat 
 in saddle ! 
 
 Perhaps the most perfect cavalier who ever changed that dig- 
 nity for the cowl, was the Chevalier de Ranee. Of him and his 
 Trappist followers I will here add a few words. 
 
94 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 THE CHEVALIER DE RANCE AND THE TRAPPISTS. 
 
 Be Ranee was born in 1626. He was of a ducal house, and 
 the great Cardinal de Richelieu was his godfather. In his youth 
 he was very sickly and scholastic. He was intended for the 
 Church, held half a score of livings before he could speak — and 
 when he could express his will, resolved to live only by his sword. 
 He remained for a while neither priest nor swordsman, but simply 
 the gayest of libertines. He projected a plan of knight-errantry, 
 in society with all the young cavaliers, and abandoned the project 
 to study astrology. For a period of some duration, he was half- 
 knight, half-priest. He then received full orders, dressed like the 
 most frivolous of marquises, seduced the Duchess de Montbazon, 
 and absolved in others the sins which he himself practised. 
 " Where are you going ?" said the Chevalier de Champvallon to 
 him one day. " I have been preaching all the morning," said De 
 Ranee, " like an angel, and I am going this afternoon to hunt like 
 the very devil." He may be said to have been like those Mor- 
 mons who describe their fervent selves as " Hell-bent on Heaven !" 
 
 Nobody could ever tell whether he was soldier or priest, till 
 death slew the Duchess de Montbazon. De Ranee unexpectedly 
 beheld the corpse disfigured by the ravages of small-pox or mea- 
 sles, and he was so shocked, that it drove him from the world to 
 the cloister, where, as the reconstructor, rather than the founder, 
 of the order of Trappists, he spent thirty-seven years — exactly as 
 many as he had passed in the " world." 
 
 The companions and followers of the chivalrous De Ranee claim 
 a few words for themselves. The account will show in what strong 
 contrasts the two portions of their lives consisted. They had 
 learned obedience in their career of arms, but they submitted to a 
 far more oppressive rule in their career as monks. Some century 
 and a half ago there was published in Paris a dreadfully dreary 
 series of volumes, entitled " Relations de la Vie et de la Mort de 
 quelques Religieux de l'Abbaye de la Trappe." They consist 
 chiefly of tracts, partly biographical and partly theological, unin- 
 teresting in the main, but of interest as showing what noble sol- 
 diers or terrible freebooters asked for shelter in, and endured the 
 austerities of, La Trappe. I have alluded to the unreserved sub- 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OF IT." 95 
 
 mission required at the hands of the brothers. The latter, accord- 
 ing to the volumes which I have just named, were sworn to impart 
 even their thoughts to the Abbot. They who thus delivered them- 
 selves with least reserve appear to have been commanded in very 
 bad Latin ; but their act of obedience was so dear to Heaven, that 
 their persons became surrounded with a glory, which their less com- 
 municative brethren, says the author naively, could not possibly 
 gaze at for any length of time : — the which I implicitly believe. 
 
 The candidates for admission included, without doubt, many 
 very pious persons, but with them were degraded priests, with 
 whom we have little to do, and ex-officers, fugitive men-at-arms, 
 robbers who had lived by the sword, and murderers, of knightly 
 degree, who had used their swords to the unrighteous slaying of 
 others, and who sought safety within the cloisters of La Trappe. 
 All that was asked of them was obedience. Where this failed it 
 was compelled. Where it abounded it was praised. Next to it 
 was humility. One brother, an ex-soldier reeking with blood, is 
 lauded because he lived on baked apples, when his throat was too 
 sore to admit of his swallowing more substantial food. Another 
 brother, who had changed arms for the gown, is most gravely com- 
 pared with Moses, because he was never bold enough to enter the 
 pantry with sandals on his feet. Still, obedience was the first 
 virtue eulogized — so eulogized that I almost suspect it to have 
 been rare. It was made of so much importance, that the commu- 
 nity were informed that all their faith, and all their works, without 
 blind obedience to the superior, would fail in securing their salva- 
 tion. Practical blindness was as strongly enjoined. He who used 
 his eyes to least purpose, was accounted the better man. One ex- 
 military brother did this in so praiseworthy a way, that in eight 
 years he had never seen a fault in any of his brethren. 
 
 It was not, however, this sort of blindness that De Ranee re- 
 quired, for he encouraged the brethren to bring accusations against 
 each other. Much praise is awarded to a brother who never looked 
 at the roof of his own cell. Laudation more unmeasured is pour- 
 ed upon another faithful knight of the new order of self-negation, 
 who was so entirely unaccustomed to raise his eyes from the ground, 
 that he was not aware of the erection of a new chapel in the gar- 
 den, until he broke his head against the wall. 
 
96 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 On one occasion the Duchess de Guiche and an eminent prelate 
 visited the monastery together. After they had left, a monk en- 
 tered the Abbot's apartment, threw himself at the feet of his 
 superior, and begged permission to confess a great crime. He 
 was told to proceed. 
 
 " When the lady and the bishop were here just now," said he, 
 " I dared to raise my eyes, and they rested upon the face — " 
 
 " Not of the lady, thou reprobate !" exclaimed the Abbot. 
 
 " Oh no," calmly rejoined the monk, " but of the old bishop !" 
 A course of bread and water was needed to work expiation for 
 the crime. 
 
 Some of the brethren illustrated what they meant by obedience 
 and humility, after a strange fashion. For example, there was 
 one who having expressed an inclination to return to the world, 
 was detained against his will. His place was in the kitchen, and 
 the devastation he committed among the crockery was something 
 stupendous — and probably not altogether unintentional. He was 
 not only continually fracturing the delf earthenware dishes, but 
 was incessantly running from the kitchen to the Abbot, from the 
 Abbot to the Prior, from the Prior to the Sub-Prior, and from the 
 Sub-Prior to the Master of the Novices to confess his fault. 
 Thence he returned to the kitchen again, once more to smash 
 whole crates of plates, following up the act with abundant confes- 
 sions, and deriving evident enjoyment, alike in destroying the 
 property, and assailing with noisy apologies the governing powers 
 whom he was resolved to inspire with a desire of getting rid 
 of him. 
 
 In spite of forced detention there was a mock appearance of 
 liberty at monthly assemblies. The brethren were asked if there 
 was anything in the arrangement of the institution and its rules 
 which they desired to see changed. As an affirmative reply, how- 
 ever, would have brought "penance" and "discipline" on him who 
 made it, the encouraging phrase that " They had only to speak," 
 by no means rendered them loquacious, and every brother, by his 
 silence, expressed his content. 
 
 If death was the suicidal object of many, the end appears to 
 have been generally attained with a speedy certainty. The supe- 
 riors and a few monks reached an advanced age ; only a few of 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OF IT." 97 
 
 the brethren died old men. Consumption, inflammation of the 
 lungs, and abscess (at memory of the minute description of which 
 the very heart turns sick), carried off the victims with terrible 
 rapidity. Men entered, voluntarily or otherwise, in good health. 
 If they did so, determined to achieve suicide, or were driven in 
 by the government with a view of putting them to death, the end 
 soon came, and was, if we may believe what we read, welcomed 
 with alacrity. After rapid, painful, and unresisted decay, the suf- 
 ferer saw as his last hour approached, the cinders strewn on the 
 ground in the shape of a cross ; a thin scattering of straw was 
 made upon the cinders, and that was the death-bed upon which 
 every Trappist expired. The body was buried in the habit of the 
 order, as some knights have been in panoply, without coffin or 
 shroud, and was borne to the grave in a cloth upheld by a few 
 brothers. If it fell into its last receptacle with huddled-up limbs, 
 De Ranee would leap into the grave and dispose the unconscious 
 members, so as to make them assume an attitude of repose. 
 
 A good deal of confusion appears to have distinguished the rules 
 of nomenclature. In many instances, where the original names 
 had impure or ridiculous significations, the change was advisable. 
 But I can not see how a brother became more cognisable as a 
 Christian, by assuming the names of Palemon, Achilles, Moses, or 
 even Dorothy. Theodore, I can understand ; but Dorothy, though 
 it bears the same meaning, seems to me but an indifferent name 
 for a monk, even in a century when the male Montmorencies de- 
 lighted in the name of " Anne." 
 
 None of the monks were distinguished by superfluous flesh. 
 Some of these ex-soldiers were so thin-skinned, that when sitting 
 on hard chairs, their bones fairly rubbed through their very slight 
 epidermis. They who so suffered, and joyfully, were held up as 
 bright examples of godliness. 
 
 There is matter for many a sigh in these saffron-leaved and 
 worm-eaten tomes, whose opened pages are now before me. I find 
 a monk who has passed a sleepless night through excess of pain. 
 To test his obedience, he is ordered to confess that he has slept 
 well and suffered nothing. The submissive soldier obeys his gen- 
 eral's command. Another confesses his readiness, as Dr. Newman 
 has done, to surrender any of his own deliberately-made convic- 
 
 7 
 
98 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 tions at the bidding of his superior. " I am wax,", he says, " for 
 you to mould me as you will ;" and his unreserved surrender of 
 himself is commended with much windiness of phrase. A third, 
 inadvertently remarking that his scalding broth is over-salted, 
 bursts into tears at the enormity of the crime he has committed 
 by thus complaining; whereupon praise falls upon him more 
 thickly than the salt did into his broth : " Yes," says the once 
 knight, now abbot, " it is not praying, nor watching, nor repent- 
 ance, that is alone asked of you by God, but humility and obedience 
 therewith ; and first obedience." 
 
 To test the fidelity of those professing to have this humility and 
 obedience, the most outrageous insults were inflicted on such as in 
 the world had been reckoned the most high-spirited. It is averred 
 that these never failed. The once testy soldier, now passionless 
 monk, kissed the sandal raised to kick, and blessed the hand lifted 
 to smite him. A proud young officer of mousquetaires, of whom 
 I have strong suspicions that he had embezzled a good deal of his 
 majesty's money, acknowledged that he was the greatest criminal 
 that ever lived ; but he stoutly denied the same when the officers 
 of the law visited the monastery and accused him of fraudulent 
 practices. This erst young warrior had no greater delight than 
 in being permitted to clean the spittoons in the chapel, and pro- 
 vide them with fresh sawdust. Another, a young marquis and 
 chevalier, performed with eestacy servile offices of a more disgust- 
 ing character. This monk was the flower of the fraternity. He 
 was for ever accusing himself of the most heinous crimes, not one 
 of which he had committed, or was capable of committing. " He 
 represented matters so ingeniously," says De Ranee, who on this 
 occasion is the biographer, " that without lying, he made himself 
 pass for the vile wretch which in truth he was not." He must 
 have been like that other clever individual who " lied like truth." 
 
 When I say that he was the flower of the fraternity, I probably 
 do some wrong to the Chevalier de Santin, who under the name 
 of Brother Palemon, was undoubtedly the chief pride of La 
 Trappe. He had been an. officer in the army ; without love for 
 God, regard for man, respect for woman, or reverence for law. In 
 consequence of a rupture between Savoy and France, he lost an 
 annuity on which he had hitherto lived. As his constitution was 
 
THE KNICxHTS WHO GREW " TIBED OF IT." 99 
 
 considerably shattered, he at the same time took to reading. He 
 was partially converted by perusing the history of Joseph ; and 
 he was finally perfected by seeing the dead body of a very old 
 and very ugly monk, assume the guise and beauty of that of a 
 young man. 
 
 This was good ground for conversion ; but the count — for the 
 chevalier of various orders was of that degree by birth — the count 
 had been so thorough a miscreant in the world, that they who lived 
 in the latter declined to believe in the godliness of Brother Pale- 
 mon. Thereupon he was exhibited to all comers, and he gave 
 ready replies to all queries put to him by his numerous visiters. 
 All France, grave and gay, noble and simple, flocked to the spec- 
 tacle. At the head of them was that once sovereign head of the 
 Order of the Garter, James II., with his illegitimate son, from 
 whom is descended the French ducal family of Fitz-James. The 
 answers of Palemon to his questioners edified countless crowds. 
 He shared admiration with another ex-military brother, who guile- 
 lessly told the laughing ladies who flocked to behold him, that he 
 had sought refuge in the monastery because his sire had wished 
 him to marry a certain lady ; but that his soul revolted at the 
 idea of touching even the finger-tips of one of a sex by the first 
 of whom the world was lost. The consequent laughter was 
 immense. 
 
 From this it is clear that there were occasionally gay doings at 
 the monastery, and that those at least who had borne arms, were 
 not addicted to close their eyes in the presence of ladies. Among 
 the most remarkable of the knightly members of the brotherhood, 
 was a certain Robert Graham, whose father, Colonel Graham, was 
 first cousin to Montrose. Robert was born, we are told, in the 
 " Chateau de Rostourne," a short league (it is added by way of 
 help, I suppose, to perplexed travellers), from Edinburgh. By 
 his mother's side he was related to the Earl of Perth, of whom the 
 Trappist biographer says, that he was even more illustrious for 
 his piety, and for what he suffered for the sake of religion, than 
 by his knighthood, his viceroyship, or his offices of High Chan- 
 cellor of England, and " Governor of the Prince of Wales, now 
 (1716) rightful king of Great Britain." The mother of Robert, 
 a zealous protestant, is spoken of as having " as much piety as one 
 
100 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 can have in a false religion." In spite of her teaching, however, 
 the young Eobert early exhibited an inclination for the Romish 
 religion; and at ten years of age, the precocious boy attended 
 mass in the chapel of Holyrood, to the great displeasure of his 
 mother. On his repeating his visit, she had him soundly whipped 
 by his tutor ; but the young gentleman declared that the process 
 could not persuade him to embrace Presbyterianism. He accord- 
 ingly rushed to the house of Lord Perth, " himself a recent con- 
 vert from the Anglican Church," and claimed his protection. 
 After some family arrangements had been concluded, the youthful 
 protege was formally surrendered to the keeping of Lord Perth, 
 by his mother, and not without reluctance. His father gave him 
 up with the unconcern of those Gallios who care little about 
 questions of religion. 
 
 Circumstances compelled the earl to leave Scotland, when 
 Robert sojourned with his mother at the house of her brother, a 
 godly protestant minister. Here he showed the value of the in- 
 structions he had received at the hands of Lord Perth and his 
 Romish chaplain, by a conduct which disgusted every honest man, 
 and terrified every honest maiden, in all the country round. His 
 worthy biographer is candid enough to say that Robert, in falling 
 off from Popery, did not become a protestant, but an atheist. 
 The uncle turned him out of his house. The prodigal repaired 
 to London, where he rioted prodigally ; thence he betook himself 
 to France, and he startled even Paris with the bad renown of his 
 evil doings. On his way thither through Flanders, he had had a 
 moment or two of misgiving as to the wisdom of his career, and 
 he hesitated while one might count twenty, between the counsel 
 of some good priests, and the bad example of some Jacobite sol- 
 diers, with whom he took service. The latter prevailed, and when 
 the chevalier Robert appeared at the court of St Germains, Lord 
 Perth presented to the fugitive king and queen there, as accom- 
 plished a scoundrel as any in Christendom. 
 
 There was a show of decency at the exiled court, and respect 
 for religion. Young Graham adapted himself to the consequent 
 influences. He studied French, read the lives of the saints, en- 
 tered the seminary at Meaux, and finally reprofessed the Romish 
 religion. He was now seized with a desire to turn hermit, but 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OF IT." 101 
 
 accident having taken him to La Trappe, the blase libertine felt 
 himself reproved by the stern virtue exhibited there, and, in a 
 moment of enthusiasm, he enrolled himself a postulant, bade fare- 
 well to the world, and devoted himself to silence, obedience, humil- 
 ity, and austerity, with a perfectness that surprised alike those who 
 saw and those who heard of it. Lord Perth opposed the reception 
 of Robert in the monastery. Thereon arose serious difficulty, and 
 therewith the postulant relapsed into sin. He blasphemed, reviled 
 his kinsmen, swore oaths that set the whole brotherhood in speech- 
 less terror, and finally wrote a letter to his old guardian, so 
 crammed with fierce and unclean epithets, that the abbot refused 
 permission to have it forwarded. The excitement which followed 
 brought on illness ; with the latter, came reflection and sorrow. 
 At length all difficulties vanished, and ultimately, on the eve of All 
 Saints, 1699, Robert Graham became a monk, and changed his 
 name for that of Brother Alexis. King James visited him, and 
 was much edified by the spiritual instruction vouchsafed him by 
 the second cousin of the gallant Montrose. The new monk was 
 so perfect in obedience that he would not in winter throw a crumb 
 to a half-starved sparrow, without first applying for leave from his 
 spiritual superior. " Indeed," says his biographer, " I could tell 
 you a thousand veritable stories about him ; but they are so extra- 
 ordinary that I do not suppose the world would believe one of 
 them." The biographer adds, that Alexis, after digging and cutting 
 wood all day ; eating little, drinking less, praying incessantly, and 
 neither washing nor unclothing himself, lay down ; but to pass the 
 night without closing his eyes in sleep ! He was truly a brother 
 Vigilantius. 
 
 The renown of his conversion had many influences. The father 
 of Alexis, Colonel Graham, embraced Romanism, and the colonel 
 and an elder son, who was already a Capuchin friar, betook them- 
 selves to La Trappe, where the reception of the former into the 
 church was marked by a double solemnity — De Ranee dying as 
 the service was proceeding. The wife of Colonel Graham is said 
 to have left Scotland on the receipt of the above intelligence, to 
 have repaired to France, and there embrace the form of faith fol- 
 lowed by her somewhat facile husband. There is, however, great 
 doubt on this point. 
 
102 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 The fate of young Robert Graham was similar to that of most 
 of the Trappists. The deadly air, the hard work, the watchings, 
 the scanty food, and the uncleanliness which prevailed, soon slew 
 a man who was as useless to his fellow-men in a convent, as he 
 had ever been in the world. His confinement was, in fact, a swift 
 suicide. Consumption seized on the poor boy, for he was still but 
 a boy, and his rigid adherence to the severe discipline of the place, 
 only aided to develop what a little care might have easily checked. 
 His serge gown clove to the carious bones which pierced through 
 his diseased skin. The portions of his body on which he immova- 
 bly lay, became gangrened, and nothing appears to have been 
 done by way of remedy. He endured all with patience, and looked 
 forward to death with a not unaccountable longing. The " infirm- 
 ier" bade him be less eager in pressing forward to the grave. — "I 
 will now pray God," said the nursing brother, a that he will be 
 pleased to save you." — " And I," said Alexis, " will ask him not 
 to heed you." Further detail is hardly necessary : suffice it to say 
 that Robert Graham died on the 21st May, 1701, little more than 
 six months after he had entered the monastery, and at the early 
 age of twenty-two years. The father and brother also died in 
 France, and so ended the chivalrous cousins of the chivalrous 
 Montrose. 
 
 The great virtue inculcated at La Trappe, was one of the cher- 
 ished virtues of old chivalry, obedience to certain rules. But there 
 was no excitement in carrying it out. Bodily suffering was en- 
 countered by a knight, for mere glory's sake. At La Trappe it 
 was accounted as the only means whereby to escape Satan. The 
 knight of the cross purchased salvation by the sacrifice of his life ; 
 the monk of La Trappe, by an unprofitable suicide. With both 
 there was doubtless the one great hope common to all Christians ; 
 but that great hope, so fortifying to the knight, seemed not to re- 
 lieve the Trappist of the fear that Satan was more powerful than 
 the Redeemer. "When once treating this subject at greater length, 
 I remarked that there was a good moral touching Satan in Cuvier's 
 dream, and the application of which might have been profitable to 
 men like these monks. The great philosopher just named, once 
 saw, in his sleep, the popular representative of the great enemy of 
 man. The fiend approached with a loudly-expressed determination 
 
THE KNIGHTS WHO GREW "TIRED OP IT." 103 
 
 to " eat him." " Eat me !" exclaimed Cuvier, examining him the 
 while with the eye of a naturalist. " Eat me ! Horns ! Hoofs !" 
 he added, scanning him over. "Horns? Hoofs? Graminiv- 
 orous ! needn't be afraid of you !" 
 
 And now let us get back from the religious orders of men to 
 chivalrous orders of ladies. It is quite time to exclaim, Place aux 
 Dames ! 
 
104 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 FEMALE KNIGHTS AND JEANNE DARC. 
 
 Mein ist der Helm, tiud mir gehort er zu. — Schiller. 
 
 " Orders for ladies" have been favorite matters with both Kings 
 and Queens, Emperors and Empresses. The Austrian Empress, 
 Eleanora de Gonzague, founded two orders, which admitted only 
 ladies as members. The first was in commemoration of the mirac- 
 ulous preservation of a particle of the true cross, which escaped 
 the ravages of a fire which nearly destroyed the imperial residence, 
 in 1668. Besides this Order of the Cross, the same Empress in- 
 stituted the Order of the Slaves of Virtue. This was hardly a 
 complimentary title, for a slave necessarily implies a compulsory 
 and unwilling servant. The number of members were limited to 
 thirty, and these were required to be noble, and of the Romish re- 
 ligion. The motto was, Sole ubique triumphat ; which may have 
 implied that she only who best served virtue, was likely to profit 
 by it. This was not making a very exalted principle of virtue it- 
 self. It was rather placing it in the point of view wherein it was 
 considered by Pamela, who was by far too calculating a young 
 lady to deserve all the eulogy that has been showered upon her. 
 
 Another Empress of Germany, Elizabeth Christiana, founded, 
 in the early part of the last century, at Vienna, an Order of Neigh- 
 borly Love. It consisted of persons of both sexes ; but nobody 
 was accounted a neighbor who was not noble. With regard to 
 numbers, it was unlimited. The motto of the order was Amor 
 Proximi ; a motto which exactly characterized the feelings of 
 Queen Guinever for any handsome knight who happened to be 
 her neighbor for the nonce. " Proximus" at the meetings of the 
 order was, of course, of that convenient gender whereby all the 
 members of the order could profit by its application. They might 
 
FEMALE KNIGHTS AND JEANNE DARC. 105 
 
 have had a particularly applicable song, if they had only possessed 
 a Beranger to sing as the French lyrist has done. 
 
 There was also in Germany an order for ladies only, that was 
 of a very sombre character. It was the Order of Death's Head ; 
 and was founded just two centuries ago, by a Duke of Wirtemburg, 
 who decreed that a princess of that house should always be at the 
 head of it. The rules bound ladies to an observance of conduct 
 which they were not likely to observe, if the rule of Christianity 
 was not strong enough to bind them ; and probably many fair ladies 
 who wore the double cross, with the death's head pending from 
 the lower one, looked on the motto of "Memento Mori," as a re- 
 minder to daring lovers who dared to look on them. 
 
 France had given us, in ladies' orders, first, the Order of the 
 Cordeliere, founded by that Anne of Brittany who brought her in- 
 dependent duchy as a dower to Charles VIII. of France, and who 
 did for the French court what Queen Charlotte effected for that 
 of England, at a much later period. Another Anne, of Austria, 
 wife of Louis XIII., and some say of Cardinal Mazarin also, found- 
 ed, for ladies, the Order of the Celestial Collar of the Holy Rosary. 
 The members consisted of fifty young ladies of the first families in 
 France ; and they all wore, appended to other and very charming 
 insignia hanging from the neck, a portrait of St. Dominic, who 
 found himself in the best possible position for instilling all sorts of 
 good principles into a maiden's bosom. 
 
 The Order of the Bee was founded a century and a half ago by 
 Louisa de Bourbon, Duchess of Maine. The ensign was a medal, 
 with the portrait of the duchess on one side, and the figure of a 
 bee, with the motto,' Je suis petite, mais mes piqueures sont pro- 
 fondes, on the other. 
 
 In Russia, Peter the Great founded the Order of St. Catherine, 
 in honor of his wife, and gave as its device, Pour V amour et la 
 Jidelite envers la patrie. It was at first intended for men, but was 
 ultimately made a female order exclusively. A similar change 
 was found necessary in the Spanish Order of the Lady of Mercy, 
 founded in the thirteenth century by James, King of Aragon. 
 There were other female orders in Spain, and the whole of them 
 had for their object the furtherance of religion, order, and virtue. 
 In some cases, membership was conferred in acknowledgment of 
 
106 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 merit. Who forgets Miss Jane Porter in her costume and insignia 
 of a lady of one of the orders of Polish female chivalry — and who 
 is ignorant that Mrs. Otway has been recently decorated by the 
 Queen of Spain with the Order of Maria Louisa ? 
 
 The Order of St. Ulrica, in Sweden, was founded in 1734, in 
 honor of a lady, the reigning Queen, and to commemorate the lib- 
 erty which Sweden had acquired and enjoyed from the period of 
 her accession. Two especial qualities were necessary in the can- 
 didates for knighthood in this order. It was necessary that a pub- 
 lic tribunal should declare that they were men of pure public spirit ; 
 and it was further required of them to prove that in serving the 
 country, they had never been swayed by motives of private inter- 
 est. When the order was about to be founded, not less than five 
 hundred candidates appeared to claim chivalric honor. Of these, 
 only fifty were chosen, and decree was made that the number of 
 knights should never exceed that amount. It was an unnecessary 
 decree, if the qualifications required were to be stringently de- 
 manded. But, in the conferring of honors generally, there has 
 often been little connection between cause and effect ; as, for in- 
 stance, after Major-General Simpson had failed to secure the vic- 
 tory which the gallantry of our troops had put in his power at the 
 Redan, the home government was so delighted, that they made 
 field-marshals of two very old gentlemen. The example was not 
 lost on the King of the Belgians. He, too, commemorated the fall 
 of Sebastopol by enlarging the number of his knights. He could 
 not well scatter decorations among his army, for that has been 
 merely a military police, but he made selection of an equally de- 
 structive body, and named eighteen doctors — Knights of St. 
 Leopold. 
 
 These orders of later institution appear to have forgotten one 
 of the leading principles of knighthood — love for the ladies — but 
 perhaps this is quite as well. When Louis II., Duke of Bourbon, 
 instituted the Order of the Golden Shield, he was by no means so 
 forgetful. He enjoined his knights to honor the ladies above all, 
 and never permit any one to slander them with impunity ; " be- 
 cause," said the good duke, " after God, we owe everything to the 
 labors of the ladies, and all the honor that man can acquire." One 
 portion of which assertion may certainly defy contradiction. 
 
FEMALE KNIGHTS AND JEANNE DARC. 107 
 
 The most illustrious of female knights, however, is, without dis- 
 pute, the Maid of Orleans. Poor Jeanne Dare seems to me to 
 have been an illustrious dupe and an innocent victim. Like Char- 
 lotte Corday, ihe calamities of her country weighed heavily upon 
 her spirits, and her consequent eager desire to relieve them, caused 
 her to be marked as a fitting instrument for a desired end. Poor 
 Charlotte Corday commissioned herself for the execution of the 
 heroic deed which embellishes her name — Jeanne Dare was evi- 
 dently commissioned by others. 
 
 The first step taken by Jeanne to obtain access to the Dauphin, 
 was to solicit the assistance of the proud De Baudricourt, who re- 
 sided not far from the maid's native place, Domremy. However 
 pious the young girl may have been, De Baudricourt was not the 
 man to give her a. public reception, had not some foregone conclu- 
 sion accompanied it. She needed his help to enable her to pro- 
 ceed to Chinon. The answer of the great chief was that she should 
 not be permitted to go there. The reply of the maid, who was 
 always uncommonly " smart" 'in her answers, was that she would 
 go to Chinon, although she were forced to crawl the whole way 
 on her knees. She did go, and the circumstances of a mere young 
 girl, who was in the habit of holding intercourse with angels and 
 archangels, thus overcoming, as it were, the most powerful person- 
 age in the district, was proof enough to the common mind, as to 
 whence she derived her strength and authority. The corps of 
 priests by whom she was followed, as soon as her divine mission 
 was acknowledged or invented by the court, lent her additional 
 influence, and sanctified in her own mind, her doubtless honest en- 
 thusiasm. The young girl did all to which she pledged herself, 
 and in return, was barbarously treated by both friend and foe, and 
 was most hellishly betrayed by the Church, under whose benedic- 
 tion she had raised her banner. She engaged to relieve Orleans 
 from the terrible English army which held it in close siege, and 
 she nobly kept her engagement. It may be noticed that the first 
 person slain in this siege, was a young lady named Belle, and the 
 fair sex thus furnished the first victim, as well as the great con- 
 queror, in this remarkable conflict. 
 
 I pass over general details, in order to have the more space to 
 notice particular illustrative circumstances touching our female 
 
108 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 warrior. Jeanne, it must be allowed, was extremely bold of asser- 
 tion as well as smart in reply. She would have delighted a Swe- 
 denborgian by the alacrity with which she protested that she held 
 intercourse with spirits from Heaven and prophets of old. Noth- 
 ing was so easy as to make her believe so ; and she was quite as 
 ready to deny the alleged fact when her clerical accusers, in the 
 day of her adversity, declared that such belief was a suggestion of 
 the devil. I think there was some humor and a little reproach in 
 the reply by Jeanne, that she would maintain or deny nothing hwl 
 as she was directed by the Church. 
 
 Meanwhile, during her short but glorious career, she manifested 
 true chivalrous spirit. She feared no man, not even the brave 
 Dunois. " Bastard, bastard !" said she to him on one occasion, 
 " in the name of God, hear me ; I command you to let me know 
 of the arrival of Fastolf as soon as it takes place ; for, hark ye, if 
 he passes without my knowledge, I give you my word, you shall 
 lose your head." And thereon she turned to her dinner of dry 
 bread and wine-and- water — half a pint of the first to two pints of 
 the last, with the quiet air of a person able and determined to real- 
 ize every menace. 
 
 It is very clear that her brother knights, while they profited by 
 her services, and obeyed (with some reluctance) her orders, nei- 
 ther thought nor spoke over-well of her. Their comments were 
 not complimentary to a virgin reputation, which a jury of prin- 
 cesses, with a queen for a forewoman, had pronounced unblem- 
 ished. She even risked her prestige over the common rank and 
 file, but generally by measures which resulted in strengthening it. 
 Thus, on taking the Fort of the Augustins from the English, she 
 destroyed all the rich tilings and lusty wine she found there, lest 
 the men should be corrupted by indulgence therein.^ It may be 
 remembered that Gustavus Vasa highly disgusted his valiant 
 Dalecarlians by a similar exhibition of healthy discipline. 
 
 The Maid undoubtedly placed the work of fighting before the 
 pleasure of feasting. When she was about to issue from her lodg- 
 ings, to head the attack against the bastion of the Tourelles, where 
 she prophesied she would be wounded, her host politely begged of 
 her to remain and partake of a dish of freshly-caught shad. It 
 was the 7th of May, and shad was just in season ; the Germans 
 
FEMALE KNIGHTS AND JEANNE DARC. 109 
 
 call it distinctively " the May-fish." Jeanne resisted the tempta- 
 tion for the moment. " Keep the fish till to-night," said she, " till 
 I have come back from the fray ; for I shall bring a Goden [a 
 * God d — n,' or Englishman] with me to partake of my supper." 
 
 She was not more ready of tongue than she was quick of eye. 
 An instance of the latter may be found in an incident before Jar- 
 geau. She was reconnoitring the place at a considerable distance. 
 The period was more than a century and a half before Hans Lip- 
 pershey, the Middleburg spectacle-maker, had invented, and still 
 more before Galileo had improved, the telescope. The Duke 
 d'Alencon was with Jeanne, and she bade him step aside, as the 
 enemy were pointing a gun at him. The Duke obeyed, for he 
 knew her acuteness of vision ; the gun was fired, and De Lude, a 
 gentleman of Anjou, standing in a line with the spot which had 
 been occupied by the Duke, was slain — which must have been 
 very satisfactory to the Duke ! 
 
 I have said that some of the knights had but a scanty respect 
 for the gallant Maid. A few, no doubt, objected to the assumption 
 of heavenly inspiration on her part. One, at least, was not so 
 particular. I allude to the Baron De Bichemond, who had been 
 exiled from court for the little misdemeanor of having assassinated 
 Cannes de Beaulieu. The Baron had recovered his good name by 
 an actively religious exercise, manifested by his hunting after wizards 
 and witches, and burning them alive, to the delight and edification 
 of dull villagers. This pious personage paid a visit to Jeanne, 
 hoping to obtain, by her intercession, the royal permission to have 
 a share in the war. The disgraced knight, who brought with him 
 a couple of thousand men, when these were most wanted, was not 
 likely to meet with a refusal of service, and the permission sought 
 for was speedily granted. Jeanne playfully alluded to her own 
 supernatural inspiration and the Baron's vocation as " witch-finder." 
 " Ah well," said De Bichemond, " with regard to yourself, I have 
 only this to say, that it is difficult to say anything ; but if you are 
 from Heaven, it is not I who shall be afraid of you ; and if you 
 come from the devil, I do not fear even him, who, in such case, 
 sends you." Thereupon, they laughed merrily, and began to talk 
 of the next day's battle. 
 
 That battle was fought upon the field of Patay, where the gal- 
 
110 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 lant Talbot was made prisoner by the equally gallant Saintrailles. 
 When the great English commander was brought into the pres- 
 ence of Jeanne, he was good-humoredly asked if he had expected 
 such a result the day before. " It is the fortune of war," philo- 
 sophically exclaimed the inimitable John ; and thereby he made a 
 soldier's comment, winch has often since been in the mouths of the 
 valiant descendants of the French knights who heard it uttered, 
 and which is frequently quoted as being of Gallic origin. But, 
 again, I think that " fortuna belli" was not an uncommon phrase, 
 perhaps, hi old days before the French language was yet spoken. 
 
 And here, talking of origin, let me notice a circumstance of some 
 interest. Jeanne Dare is commonly described as Jeanne D'Arc, 
 as though she had been ennobled. This, indeed, she was, by the 
 King, but not by that name. To the old family name was added 
 that of du Lys, in allusion to the Lily of France, which that family 
 had served so well. The brothers of Jeanne, now Dare du Lys, 
 entered the army. When Guise sent a French force into Scot- 
 land, some gallant gentlemen of this name of Lys were among 
 them. They probably settled in Caledonia, for the name is not an 
 uncommon one there ; and there is a gallant major in the 48th who 
 bears it, and who, perhaps, may owe his descent to the ennobled 
 brothers of " The Maid of Orleans." 
 
 Jeanne was not so affected as to believe that nobility was above 
 the desert of her deeds. When her relatives, including her broth- 
 ers, Peter and John, congratulated her and themselves on all that 
 she had accomplished, her remark was : " My deeds are in truth 
 those of a ministry ; but in as great truth never were greater read 
 of by cleric, however profound he may be in all clerical learning." 
 The degree of nobility allowed to the deserving girl was that of a 
 countess. Her household consisted of a steward, almoner, squire, 
 pages, " hand, foot, and chamber men," independently of the noble 
 maidens who tended her, and who seem to have been equally 
 served by three " valets de main, de pied, et de chambre." 
 
 But short-lived was the glory ; no, I will not say that, let me 
 rather remark that short-lived was the worldly splendor of the 
 chivalrous my-lady countess. She had rendered all the service 
 she could, when she fell wounded before Paris, and was basely 
 abandoned for a while by her own party. She was rescued, ulti- 
 
FEMALE KNIGHTS AND JEANNE DARC. Ill 
 
 mately, by D'Alencon, but only to be more disgracefully aban- 
 doned on the one side, and evilly treated on the other. When as 
 a bleeding captive she was rudely dragged from the field at Com- 
 piegne ; church, court, and chivalry, ignobly abandoned the poor 
 and brave girl who had served all three in turn. By all three she 
 was now as fiercely persecuted ; and it may safely be said, that 
 if the English were glad to burn her as a witch, to account for the 
 defeat of the English and their allies, the French were equally 
 eager to furnish testimony against her. 
 
 Her indecision and vacillation after falling into the hands of her 
 enemies, would seem to show that apart from the promptings of 
 those who had guided her, she was but an ordinary personage. 
 She, however, never lost heart, and her natural wit did not 
 abandon her. "Was St. Michael naked when he appeared to 
 you ?" was a question asked by one of the examining commission- 
 ers. To which Jeanne replied, " Do you think heaven has not 
 wherewith to dress him ?" " Had he any hair on his head ?" was 
 the next sensible question. Jeanne answered it by another query, 
 " Have the goodness to tell me," said she, " why Michael's head 
 should have been shaved ?" It was easy, of course, to convict a 
 prejudged and predoomed person, of desertion of her parents, of 
 leading a vagabond and disreputable life, of sorcery, and finally, 
 of heresy. She was entrapped into answers which tended to prove 
 her culpability ; but disregarding at last the complicated web woven 
 tightly around her, and aware that nothing could save her, the 
 heart of the knightly maiden beat firmly again, and as a summary 
 reply to all questions, she briefly and emphatically declared : " All 
 that I have done, all that I do, I have done well, and do well to do 
 it." In her own words, " Tout ce que j'ai fait, tout ce que je fais, 
 j'ai bien fait, et fais bien de le faire ;" and it was a simply-dignified 
 resume in presence of high-born ecclesiastics, who did not scruple 
 to give the He to each other like common ploughmen, 
 
 She was sentenced to death, and suffered the penalty, as being 
 guilty of infamy, socially, morally, religiously, and politically. Not 
 a finger was stretched to save her who had saved so many. Her 
 murder is an indelible stain on two nations and one church ; not 
 the less so that the two nations unite in honoring her memory, and 
 that the church has pronounced her innocent, Never did gallant 
 
112 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 champion meet with such base ingratitude from the party raised 
 by her means from abject slavery to triumph ; never was noble 
 enemy so ignobly treated by a foe with Avhom, to acknowledge 
 and admire valor, is next to the practice of it ; and never was 
 staff selected by the church for its support, so readily broken and 
 thrown into the fire when it had served its purpose. All the sor- 
 row in the world can not wash out these terrible facts, but it is 
 fitting that this sorrow should always accompany our admiration. 
 And so, honored be the memory of the young girl of Orleans ! 
 
 After all, it is a question whether our sympathies be not thrown 
 away when we affect to feel for Jeanne Dare. M. Delepierre, the 
 Belgian Secretary of Legation, has printed, for private circulation, 
 his " Doute Historique." This work consists chiefly of official 
 documents, showing that the " Maid" never suffered at all, but that 
 some criminal having been executed in her place, she survived to 
 be a pensioner of the government, a married lady, and the mother 
 of a family ! The work in which these documents are produced, 
 is not to be easily procured, but they who have any curiosity in 
 the matter will find the subject largely treated in the Athenceum. 
 This " Historical Doubt" brings us so closely in connection with 
 romance, that we, perhaps, can not do better in illustrating our 
 subject, than turn to a purely romantic subject, and see of what 
 metal the champions of Christendom were made, with respect to 
 chivalry. 
 
THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM. 113 
 
 THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM GENERALLY 
 AND HE OF ENGLAND IN PARTICULAR. 
 
 " Are these things true ? 
 Thousands are getting at them in the streets." 
 
 Sejanus His Fall. 
 
 I can hardly express the delight I feel as a biographer in the 
 present instance, in the very welcome fact that no one knows any- 
 thing about the parentage of St. George. If there had been a 
 genealogical tree of the great champion's race, the odds, are that I 
 should have got bewildered among the branches. As there is 
 only much conjecture with a liberal allowance of assertion, the 
 task is doubly easy, particularly as the matter itself is of the very 
 smallest importance. 
 
 The first proof that our national patron ever existed at all, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Alban Butler, is that the Greeks reverenced him 
 by the name of " the Great Martyr." Further proof of a some- 
 what similar quality, is adduced in the circumstance that in Greece 
 and in various parts of the Levant, there are or were dozens of 
 churches erected in honor of the chivalrous saint ; that Georgia 
 took the holy knight for its especial patron ; and that St. George, in 
 full panoply, won innumerable battles for the Christians, by leading 
 forward the reserves when the vanguard had been repulsed by the 
 infidels, and the Christian generals were of themselves too indo- 
 lent, sick, or incompetent, to do what they expected St. George to 
 do for them. 
 
 From the East, veneration for this name, and some imaginary 
 person who once bore it, extended itself throughout the West. 
 It is a curious fact, that long before England placed herself under 
 the shield of this religious soldier, France had made selection of 
 him, at least as a useful adjutant or aide-de-camp to St. Denis. 
 
 8 
 
114 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Indeed, our saint was at one time nearly monopolized by France. 
 St. Clotilde, the wife of the first Christian king of France, raised 
 many altars in his honor — a fact which has not been forgotten in 
 the decorations and illustrative adornments of that splendid church 
 which has just been completed in the Faubourg St. Germain, and 
 which is at once the pride and glory of Paris. That city once 
 possessed relics which were said to be those of St. George ; but 
 of their whereabouts, no man now knows anything. We do, how- 
 ever, know that the Normans brought over the name of the saint 
 with them, as that of one in whose arm of power they trusted, 
 whether in the lists or in battle. In this respect we, as Saxons, 
 if we choose to consider ourselves as such, have no particular rea- 
 son to be grateful to the saint, for his presence among us is a sym- 
 bol of national defeat if not of national humiliation. Not above 
 six centuries have, however, elapsed since the great council of 
 Oxford appointed his feast to be kept as a holyday of lesser rank 
 throughout England; and it is about five hundred years since 
 Edward III. established the Order of the Garter, under the pa- 
 tronage of this saint. This order is far more ancient than that of 
 St. Michael, instituted by Louis XI. ; of the Golden Fleece, in- 
 vented by that ' good' Duke Philip of Burgundy, who fleeced all 
 who were luckless enough to come within reach of his ducal shears ; 
 and of the Scottish Order of St. Andrew, which is nearly two 
 centuries younger than that of St. George. Venice, Genoa, and 
 Germany, have also instituted orders of chivalry in honor of this 
 unknown cavalier. 
 
 These honors, however, and a very general devotion prove noth- 
 ing touching his birth, parentage, and education. Indeed, it is 
 probably because nothing is known of either, that his more serious 
 biographers begin with his decease, and write his history, which, 
 like one of Zschokke's tales, might be inscribed " Alles Verkerht." 
 They tell us that he suffered under Diocletian, in Nicomedia, and 
 on the 23d of April. We are further informed that he was a 
 Cappadocian — a descendant of those savagely servile people, who 
 once told the Romans that they would neither accept liberty at the 
 hands of Rome, nor tolerate it of their own accord. He was, it 
 is said, of noble birth, and after the death of his father, resided 
 with his mother in Palestine, on an estate which finally became 
 
THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM. 115 
 
 his own. The young squire was a handsome and stalwart youth, 
 and, like many of that profession, fond of a military life. His 
 promotion must have been pretty rapid, for we find him, according 
 to tradition, a tribune or colonel in the army at a very early age, 
 and a man of much higher rank before he prematurely died. His 
 ideas of discipline were good, for when the pagan emperor perse- 
 cuted the Christians, George of Cappadocia resigned his commis- 
 sion and appointments, and not till then, when he was a private 
 man, did he stoutly remonstrate with his imperial ex-commander- 
 in-chief against that sovereign's bloody edicts and fiercer cruelty 
 against the Christians. This righteous boldness was barbarously 
 avenged ; and on the day after the remonstrance the gallant soldier 
 lost his head. Some authors add to this account that he was the 
 " illustrious young man" who tore down the anti- Christian edicts, 
 when they were first posted up in Nicomedia, a conjecture which, 
 by the hagiographers is called "plausible," but which has no 
 shadow of proof to give warrant for its substantiality. 
 
 The reason why all knights and soldiers generally have had 
 confidence in St. George, is founded, we are told, on the facts of 
 his reappearance on earth at various periods, and particularly at 
 the great siege of Antioch, in the times of the crusades. The 
 Christians had been well nigh as thoroughly beaten as the Rus- 
 sians at Silistria. They were at the utmost extremity, when a 
 squadron was seen rushing down from a mountain defile, with three 
 knights at its head, in brilliant panoply and snow-white scarfs. 
 "Behold," cried Bishop Adhemar, " the heavenly succor which 
 was promised to you ! Heaven declares for the Christians. The 
 holy martyrs, George, Demetrius, and Theodore, come to fight for 
 you." The effect was electrical. The Christian army rushed to 
 victory, with the shout, " It is the will of God !" and the effect of 
 the opportune appearance of the three chiefs and their squadron, 
 who laid right lustily on the Saracens, was decisive of one of the 
 most glorious, yet only temporarily productive of triumphs. 
 
 TThen Richard I. was on his expedition against enemies of the 
 same race, he too was relieved from great straits by a vision of 
 St. George. The army, indeed, did not see the glorious and in- 
 spiring sight, but the king affirmed that he did, which, in those 
 credulous times was quite as well. In these later days men are 
 
116 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 less credulous, or saints are more cautious. . Thus the Muscovites 
 assaulted Kars under the idea that St. Sergius was with them ; at 
 all events, Pacha Williams, a good cause, and sinewy arms, were 
 stronger than the Muscovite idea and St. Sergius to boot. 
 
 Such, then, is the hagiography of our martial saint. Gibbon 
 has sketched his life in another point of view — business-like, if not 
 matter-of-fact. The terrible historian sets down our great patron 
 as having been born in a fuller's shop in Cilicia, educated (perhaps) 
 in Cappadocia, and as having so won promotion, when a young 
 man, from his patrons, by the skilful exercise of his profession as 
 a parasite, as to procure, through their influence, " a lucrative com- 
 mission or contract to supply the army with bacon !" In this 
 commissariat employment he is said to have exercised fraud and 
 corruption, by which may be meant that he sent to the army bacon 
 as rusty as an old cuirass, and charged a high price for a worthless 
 article. In these times, when the name and character of St. 
 George are established, it is to be hoped that Christian purveyors 
 for Christian armies do not, in reverencing George the Saint, imi- 
 tate the practices alleged against him as George the Contractor. 
 It would be hard, indeed, if a modem contractor who sent foul hay 
 to the cavalry, uneatable food to the army generally, or poisonous 
 potted-meat to the navy, could shield himself under the name 
 and example of St. George. Charges as heavy are alleged against 
 him by Gibbon, who adds that the malversations of the pious rogue 
 " were so notorious, that George was compelled to escape from the 
 pursuit of justice." If he saved his fortune, it is allowed that he 
 made shipwreck of his honor ; and he certainly did not improve 
 his reputation if, as is alleged, he turned Arian. The career of 
 our patron saint, as described by Gibbon, is startling. That writer 
 speaks of the splendid library subsequently collected by George, 
 but he hints that the volumes on history, rhetoric, philosophy, and 
 theology, were perhaps as much proof of ostentation as of love for 
 learning. That George was raised by the intrigues of a faction 
 to the pastoral throne of Athanasius, in Alexandria, does not sur- 
 prise us. Bishops were very irregularly elected in those early 
 days, when men were sometimes summarily made teachers who 
 needed instruction themselves ; as is the case in some enlightened 
 districts at present. George displayed an imperial pomp in his 
 
THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM. 117 
 
 archiepiscopal character, " but he still betrayed those vices of his 
 base and servile extraction," yet was so impartial that he oppressed 
 and plundered all parties alike. " The merchants of Alexandria/ 
 says the historian of the " Decline and Fall," " were impoverished 
 by the unjust and almost universal monopoly which he acquired 
 of nitre, salt, paper, funerals, &c, and the spiritual father of a 
 great people condescended to practise the vile and pernicious arts 
 of an informer. He seems to have had as sharp an eye after the 
 profit to be derived from burials, as a certain archdeacon, who 
 thinks intramural burial of the dead a very sanitary measure for 
 the living, and particularly profitable to the clergy. Thus the ex- 
 ample of St. George would seem to influence very " venerable" as 
 well as very " martial" gentlemen. The Cappadocian most espe- 
 cially disgusted the Alexandrians by levying a house tax, of his 
 own motion, and as he pillaged the pagan temples as well, all par- 
 ties rose at length against the common oppressor, and " under the 
 reign of Constantine he was expelled by the fury and justice of 
 the people." He was restored only again to fall. The accession 
 of Julian brought destruction upon the archbishop and many of 
 his friends, who, after an imprisonment of three weeks, were 
 dragged from their dungeons by a wild and cruel populace, and 
 murdered in the streets. The bodies were paraded in triumph 
 upon camels (as that of Conde was by his Catholic opponents, 
 after the battle of Jarnac, on an ass), and they were ultimately 
 cast into the sea. This last measure was adopted in order that, if 
 the sufferers were to be accounted as martyrs, there should at least 
 be no relics of them for men to worship. Gibbon thus concludes : 
 " The fears of the Pagans were just, and their precautions inef- 
 fectual. The meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated the 
 memory of his life. The rival of Athanasius was dear and sacred 
 to the Arians, and the seeming conversion of those sectaries intro- 
 duced his worship into the bosom of the Catholic church. The 
 odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, 
 assumed the rank of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero ; and 
 the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the 
 famous St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, 
 and of the garter." 
 
 The romancers have treated St. George and his knightly con- 
 
118 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 fraternity after their own manner. As a sample of what reading 
 our ancestors were delighted with, especially those who loved chiv- 
 alric themes, I know nothing better than " The Famous History 
 of the Seven Champions of Christendom, St. George of England, 
 St. Denis of France, St. James of Spain, St. Anthony of "Italy, St. 
 Andrew of Scotland, St. Patrick of Ireland, and St. David of 
 Wales. Shewing their honourable battles by sea and land. Their 
 tilts, justs, tournaments for ladies ; their combats with gyants, mon- 
 sters, and dragons ; their adventures in foreign nations ; their en- 
 chantments in the Holy Land; their knighthoods, prowess, and 
 chivalry, in Europe, Africa, and Asia ; with their victories against 
 the enemies of Christ ; also the true manner and places of their 
 deaths, being seven tragedies, and how they came to be called the 
 Seven Saints of Christendom." The courteous author or publish- 
 er of the veracious details, prefaces them with a brief address " to 
 all courteous readers," to whom " Richard Johnson wisheth increase 
 of virtuous knowledge." " Be not," he says, " like the chattering 
 cranes, nor Momus's mates that carp at everything. What the 
 simple say, I care not. What the spiteful say, I pass not ; only 
 the censure of the conceited," by which good Richard means the 
 learned, "I stand unto ; that is the mark I aim at," — an address, 
 it may be observed, which smacks of the Malaprop school ; but 
 which seemed more natural to our ancestors than it does to us. 
 
 For these readers Richard Johnson presents a very highly-spiced 
 fare. He brings our patron saint into the world by a Cesarean 
 operation performed by a witch, who stole him from his uncon- 
 scious mother, and reared him up in a cave, whence the young 
 knight ultimately escaped with the other champions whom the 
 witch, now slain, had kept imprisoned. The champions, it may 
 be observed, travel with a celerity that mocks the " Express," and 
 rivals the despatch of the Electric Telegraph. They are scarcely 
 departed from the seven paths which led from the brazen pillar, 
 each in search of adventures, when they are all " in the thick of 
 it," almost at the antipodes. A breath takes St. George from 
 Coventry, his recovered home, after leaving the witch, to Egypt. 
 At the latter place he slays that terrible dragon, which some think 
 to imply the Arian overcoming the Athanasian, and rescues the 
 Princess Sabra, in whose very liberal love we can hardly trace a 
 
THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM. 119 
 
 symbol of the Church, although her antipathies are sufficiently 
 strong to remind one of the odium theohgicum. George goes on 
 performing stupendous feats, and getting no thanks, until he under- 
 takes to slay a couple of lions for the Soldan of Persia, and gets 
 clapped into prison, during seven years, for his pains. The biog- 
 rapher I suspect, shut the knight up so long, in order to have an 
 excuse to begin episodically with the life of St. Denis. 
 
 The mystic number seven enters into all the principal divisions 
 of the story. Thus, St. Denis having wandered into Thessaly 
 was reduced to such straits as to live upon mulberries ; and these 
 so disagreed with him that he became suddenly transformed into a 
 hart ; a very illogical sequence indeed. But the mulberry tree 
 was, in fact, Eglantius the King's daughter, metamorphosed for 
 her pride. Seven years he thus remained ; at the end of which 
 time, his horse, wise as any regularly-ordained physician, adminis- 
 tered to him a decoction of roses which brought about the transfor- 
 mation of both his master and his master's mistress into their 
 u humane shapes." That they went to court sworn lovers may be 
 taken as a matter of course. There they are left, in order to afford 
 the author an opportunity of showing how St. James, having most 
 unorthodoxically fallen in love with a Jewish maiden, was seven 
 years dumb, in consequence. St. James, however, is a patient and 
 persevering lover. If I had an ill-will against any one I would coun- 
 sel him to read this very long-winded history, but being at peace 
 with all mankind, I advise my readers to be content with learning 
 that the apostolic champion and the young Jewess are ultimately 
 united, and fly to Seville, where they reside in furnished lodgings, 
 and lead a happy life ; — while the author tells of what befell to 
 the doughty St. Anthony. 
 
 This notable Italian is a great hand at subduing giants and 
 ladies. We have a surfeit of combats and destruction, and love- 
 making and speechifying, in this champion's life ; and when we 
 are compelled to leave him travelling about with a Thracian lady, 
 who accompanies him, in a theatrical male dress, and looks in it 
 like the Duchess — at least, like Miss Farebrother, in the dashing 
 white sergeant of the Forty Thieves — we shake our head at St. 
 Anthony and think how very unlike he is to his namesake in the 
 etching by Callot, where the fairest of sirens could not squeeze a 
 sicrh from the anehoritp'c wrinklpd bpnrt. 
 
120 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 "While they are travelling about in the rather disreputable fash- 
 ion above alluded to, we come across St. Andrew of Scotland, who 
 has greater variety of adventure than any other of the champions. 
 "With every hour there is a fresh incident. Now he is battling 
 with spirits, now struggling with human foes, and anon mixed up, 
 unfavorably, with beasts. At the end of all the frays, there is — 
 we need hardly say it — a lady. The bonny Scot was not likely 
 to be behind his fellow-champions in this respect. Nay, St. An- 
 drew has six of them, who had been swans, and are now natural 
 singing lasses. What sort of a blade St. Andrew was may be 
 guessed by the " fact," that when he departed from the royal court, 
 to which he had conducted the half dozen, ladies, they all eloped 
 in a body, after him. There never was so dashing a hero dreamed 
 of by romance — though a rhymer has dashed off his equal in 
 wooing, and Burns's " Finlay" is the only one that may stand the 
 parallel. 
 
 When the six Thracian ladies fall into the power of " thirty 
 bloody-minded satyrs," who so likely, or so happy to rescue them 
 as jolly St. Patrick. How he flies to the rescue, slays one satyr, 
 puts the rest to flight, and true as steel, in love or friendship, takes 
 the half dozen damsels under his arm, and swings singingly along 
 with them in search of the roving Scot ! As for St. David, all this 
 while, he had not been quite so triumphant, or so tried, as his fellows. 
 He had fallen into bad company, and "four beautiful damsels 
 wrapped the drousie champion in a sheet of fine Arabian silk, and 
 conveyed him into a cave, placed in the middle of a garden, where 
 they laid him on a bed, more softer than the down of Culvers." 
 In this agreeable company the Welsh champion wiled away his 
 seven years. It was pleasant but not proper. But if the author 
 had not thus disposed of him, how do you think he would ever 
 have got back to St. George of England ? The author indeed ex- 
 hibits considerable skill, for he brings St. George and St. David 
 together, and the first rescues the second from ignoble thraldom, 
 and what is worse, from the most prosy enchanter I ever met with 
 in history, and who is really not enchanting at all. This done, 
 George is off to Tripoli. 
 
 There, near there, or somewhere else, for the romances are 
 dreadfully careless in their topography, he falls in with his old love 
 
THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM. 121 
 
 Sabra, married to a Moorish King. If George is perplexed at 
 this, seeing that the lady had engaged to remain an unmarried 
 maiden till he came to wed her, he is still more so when she informs 
 him that she has, in all essentials, kept her word, " through the 
 secret virtue of a golden chain steeped in tiger's blood, the which 
 she wore seven times double about her ivory neck." St. George 
 does not know what to make of it, but as on subsequently encoun- 
 tering two lions, Sabra, while he was despatching one, kept the 
 other quietly with its head resting on her lap, the knight declared 
 himself perfectly satisfied, and they set out upon their travels, lov- 
 ingly together. 
 
 By the luckiest chance, all the wandering knights and their ladies 
 met at the court of a King of Greece, who is not, certainly, to be 
 heard of in Gillies' or Goldsmith's history. The scenery is now 
 on a magnificent scale, for there is* a regal wedding on foot, and 
 tournaments, and the real war of Heathenism against all Christen- 
 dom. As the Champions of Christendom have as yet done little 
 to warrant them in assuming the appellation, one would suppose 
 that the time had now arrived when they were to give the world 
 a taste of their quality in that respect. But nothing of the sort 
 occurs. The seven worthies separate, each to his own country, in 
 order to prepare for great deeds ; but none are done for the benefit 
 of Christianity, unless indeed we are to conclude that when George 
 and Sabra travelled together, and he overcame all antagonists, and 
 she inspired with love all beholders; — he subdued nature itself 
 and she ran continually into danger, from which he rescued her ; 
 — and that when, after being condemned to the stake, the young 
 wife gave birth to three babes in the wood, and was at last crowned 
 Queen of Egypt, something is meant by way of allegory, in refer- 
 ence to old church questions, and in not very clear elucidation as 
 to how these questions were beneficially affected by the Champions 
 of Christendom! 
 
 I may add that when Sabra was crowned Queen of Egypt, every 
 one was ordered to be merry, on pain of death ! It is further to 
 be observed there is now much confusion, and that the confusion 
 by no means grows less as the story thunders on. The Cham- 
 pions and the three sons of St. George are, by turns, East, West, 
 North, and South, either pursuing each other, or suddenly and un- 
 
122 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 expectedly encountering, like the principal personges in a panto- 
 mime. Battles, love-making, and shutting up cruel and reprobate 
 magicians from the " humane eye," are the chief events, but to 
 every event there are dozens of episodes, and each episode is as 
 confusing, dazzling, and bewildering as the trunk from which it 
 hangs. 
 
 St. George, however, is like a greater champion than himself; 
 and when he is idle and in Italy, he does precisely what Nelson 
 did in the same place — fall in love with a lady, and cause endless 
 mischief in consequence. By this time, however, Johnson begins 
 to think, rightly, that his readers have had enough of it, and that 
 it is time to dispose of his principal characters. These too, are so 
 well disposed to help him, that when the author kills St. Patrick, 
 the saint burys himself ! In memory of his deeds, of which we 
 have heard little or nothing, some are accustomed to honor him, 
 says Mr. Johnson — "wearing upon their hats, each of them, a 
 cross of red silk, in token of his many adventures under the Chris- 
 tian Cross." So that the shamrock appears to have been a device 
 only of later times. 
 
 St. David is as quickly despatched. This champion enters 
 Wales to crush the pagans there. He wears a leek in his helmet, 
 and his followers adopt the same fashion, in order that friend may 
 be distinguished from foe. The doughty saint, of course, comes 
 conqueror out of the battle, but he is in a heated state, gets a chill 
 and dies after all of a common cold. Bruce, returning safe from 
 exploring the Nile, to break his neck by falling down his own 
 stairs, hardly presents a more practical bathos than this. Why 
 the leek became the badge of Welshmen need not be further ex- 
 plained. 
 
 It is singular that in recounting the manner of the death of the 
 next champion, St. Denis, the romancer is less romantic than com- 
 mon tradition. He tells us how the knight repaired to then pagan 
 France ; how he was accused of being a Christian, by another 
 knight of what we should fancy a Christian order, St. Michael, 
 and how the pagan king orders St. Denis to be beheaded, in con- 
 sequence. There are wonders in the heavens, at this execution, 
 which convert the heathen sovereign to Christianity ; but no men- 
 tion is made of St. Denis having walked to a monastery, after his 
 
THE CHAMPIONS OP CHRISTENDOM. 123 
 
 head was off, and with his head under his arm. Of this prodigy 
 Voltaire remarked, " Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute," but 
 of that the romancer makes no mention. St. James suffers by 
 being shut up in his chapel in Spain, and starved to death, by order 
 of the Atheist king. Anthony dies quietly in a good old age, in 
 Italy ; St. Andrew is beheaded by the cruel pagan Scots whom, 
 in his old age, he had visited, in order to bring them to conversion : 
 and St. George, who goes on, riding down wild monsters and res- 
 cuing timid maidens, to the last — and his inclination, was always 
 in the direction of the maidens — ultimately meets his death by the 
 sting of a venomous dragon. 
 
 And now it would seem that two or three hundred years ago, 
 authors were very much like the actors in the Critic, who when they 
 did get hold of a good thing, could never give the public enough 
 of it. Accordingly, the biography of the Seven Champions was 
 followed by that of their sons. I will spare my readers the tur- 
 bulent details : they will probably be satisfied with learning that 
 the three sons of St. George became kings, " according as the 
 fairy queen had prophesied to them," and that Sir Turpin, son of 
 David, Sir Pedro, son of James, Sir Orlando, son of Anthony, 
 Sir Ewen, son of Andrew, Sir Phelim, son of Patrick, and Sir 
 Owen, son of David, like their sires, combated with giants, mon- 
 sters, and dragons ; tilted and tournamented in honor of the ladies, 
 did battle in defence of Christianity, relieved the distressed, anni- 
 hilated necromancers and table-turners, in short, accomplished all 
 that could be expected from knights of such prowess and chivalry. 
 
 When Richard Johnson. had reached this part of his history, 
 he gave it to the world, awaiting the judgment of the critics, be- 
 fore he published his second portion : that portion wherein he was 
 to unfold what nobody yet could guess at, namely, wherefore the 
 Seven Champions were called par excellence, the Champions of 
 Christendom. I am afraid that meanwhile those terrible, god-like, 
 and inexorable critics, had not dealt altogether gently with him. 
 The Punch they offered him was not made exclusively of sweets. 
 His St. George had been attacked, and very small reverence been 
 expressed for his ladies. But see how calmly and courteously — 
 all the more admirable that there must have been some affectation 
 in the matter — he turns from the censuring judges to that benev- 
 
124 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 olent personage, the gentle reader. "Thy courtesy," he says, 
 " must be my buckler against the carping malice of mocking jest- 
 ers, that being worse able to do well, scoff commonly at that they 
 can not mend ; censuring all things, doing nothing, but (monkey- 
 like) make apish jests at anything they do in print, and nothing 
 pleaseth them, except it savor of a scoffing and invective spirit. 
 Well, what they say of me I do not care ; thy delight is my sole 
 desire." Well said, bold Richard Johnson. He thought he had 
 put down criticism as St. George had the dragon. 
 
 I can not say, however, that good Richard Johnson treats his 
 gentle reader fairly. This second part of his Champions is to a 
 reader worse than what all the labors of Hercules were to the 
 lusty son of Alcmena. An historical drama at Astley's is not half 
 so bewildering, and is almost as credible, and Mr. Ducrow himself 
 when he was rehearsing his celebrated " spectacle drama" of " St. 
 George and the Dragon" at old Drury — and who that ever saw 
 him on those occasions can possibly forget him ? — achieved greater 
 feats, or was more utterly unlike any sane individual than St. 
 George is, as put upon the literary stage by Master Johnson. 
 
 One comfort in tracing the tortuosities of this chivalric romance 
 is that the action is rapid ; but then there is so much of it, and it 
 is so astounding ! We are first introduced to the three sons of 
 St. George, who are famous hunters in England, and whose mother, 
 the lady Sabra, "catches her death," by going out attired like 
 Diana, to witness their achievements. The chivalric widower 
 thereupon sets out for Jerusalem, his fellow-champions accompany, 
 and George's three sons, Guy, Alexander, and David, upon insin- 
 uation from their mother's spirit, start too in pursuit. The lads 
 were knighted by the king of England before they commenced 
 their journey, which they perform with the golden spur of chivalry 
 attached to their heels. They meet with the usual adventures by 
 the way: destroying giants, and rescuing virgins, who in these 
 troublesome times seem to have been allowed to travel about too 
 much by themselves. Meanwhile, their sire is enacting greater 
 prodigies still, and is continually delivering his fellow-champions 
 from difficulties, from which they are unable to extricate themselves. 
 Indeed, in all circumstances, his figure is the most prominent ; and 
 although the other half-dozen must have rendered some service on 
 
THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM. 125 
 
 each occasion, St. George makes no more mention of the same 
 than Marshal St. Arnaud, in his letters on the victory at the Alma, 
 does of the presence and services of the English. 
 
 It is said that Mrs. Radcliffe, whose horrors used to delight and 
 distress our mothers and aunts, in their younger days, became her- 
 self affected by the terrors which she only paints to explain away 
 natural circumstances. What then must have been the end of 
 Richard Johnson ? His scene of the enchantments of the Black 
 Castle is quite enough to have killed the author with bewilderment. 
 There is a flooring in the old palace of the Prince of Orange in 
 Brussels, which is so inlaid with small pieces of wood, of a thou- 
 sand varieties of patterns, as to be a triumph of its kind. I was 
 not at all surprised, when standing on that floor, to hear that when 
 the artist had completed his inconceivable labor, he gave one wild 
 gaze over the parquet of the palace, and dropped dead of a fit of 
 giddiness. I am sure that Richard Johnson must have met with 
 some such calamity after revising this portion of his history. It 
 is a portion in which it is impossible for the Champions or for the 
 readers to go to sleep. The noise is terrific, the incidents fall like 
 thunderbolts, the changes roll over each other in a succession made 
 with electric rapidity, and when the end comes we are all the more 
 rejoiced, because we have comprehended nothing ; but we are es- 
 pecially glad to find that the knight of the Black Castle, who is 
 the cause of all the mischief, is overcome, flies in a state of desti- 
 tution to a neighboring wood, and being irretrievably " hard up," 
 stabs himself with the first thing at hand, as ruthlessly as the lover 
 of the " Ratcatcher's Daughter." 
 
 Time, place, propriety, and a respect for contemporary history, 
 are amusingly violated throughout the veracious details. Nothing 
 can equal the confusion, nothing can be more absurd than the 
 errors. But great men have committed errors as grave. Shake- 
 speare opened a seaport in Bohemia, and Mr. Macaulay wrote 
 of one Penn what was only to be attributed to another. And now, 
 have the dramatists treated St. George better than the romancers ? 
 
 The national saint was, doubtless, often introduced in the Mys- 
 teries ; but the first occasion of which I have any knowledge of 
 his having been introduced on the stage, was by an author named 
 John Kirke. John was so satisfied with his attempt that he never 
 
126 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 wrote a second play. He allowed his fame to rest on the one in 
 question, which is thus described on his title-page : " The Seven 
 Champions of Christendome. Acted at the Cocke Pit, and at the 
 Bed Bull in St. John's Streete, with a general liking, And never 
 printed till this yeare 1638. Written by J. K. — London, printed 
 by J. Okes, and are (sic) to be sold by James Becket, at his Shop 
 in the Inner Temple Gate, 1638." 
 
 John Kirke treats Ins subject melodramatically. In the first 
 scene, Calib the Witch, in a speech prefacing her declarations of a 
 love for foul weather and deeds, tells the audience by way of pro- 
 logue, how she had stolen the young St. George from his now de- 
 funct parent, with the intention of making a bath for her old bones 
 out of his young warm blood. Love, however, had touched her, 
 and she had brought up " the red-lipped boy," with some indefinite 
 idea of making something of him when a man. 
 
 With this disposition the old lady has some fears as to the pos- 
 sible approaching term of her life ; but, as she is assured by " Tar- 
 fax the Devill" that she can not die unless she love blindly, the 
 witch, like a mere mortal, accounting that she loves wisely, reckons 
 herself a daughter of immortality, and rejoices hugely. The col- 
 loquy of this couple is interrupted by their son Suckabud, who, 
 out of a head just broken by St. George, makes complaint with 
 that comic lack of fun, which was wont to make roar the entire 
 inside of the Red Bull. The young clown retires with his sire, 
 and then enters the great St. George, a lusty lad, with a world of 
 inquiries touching his parentage. Calib explains that his lady 
 mother was anything but an honest woman, and that his sire was 
 just the partner to match. "Base or noble, pray?" asks St. 
 George. To which the witch replies : — 
 
 " Base and noble too ; 
 Both base by thee, but noble by descent ; 
 And thou born base, yet mayst thou write true gent :" . 
 
 and it may be said, parenthetically, that many a " true gent" is by 
 birth equal to St. George himself. 
 
 Overcome by her affection, the witch makes a present to St. 
 George of the half-dozen champions of England whom she holds 
 in chains within her dwelling. One of them is described as " the 
 
THE CHAMPIONS OP CHRISTENDOM. 127 
 
 lively, brisk, cross-cap'ring Frenchman, Denis." "With these for 
 slaves, Calib yields her wand of power, and the giver is no sooner 
 out of sight when George invokes the shades of his parents, who 
 not only appear and furnish him with a corrected edition of his 
 biography, but inform him that he is legitimate Earl of Coventry, 
 with all the appurtenances that a young earl can desire. 
 
 Thereupon ensues a hubbub that must have shaken all the lamps 
 in the cockpit. George turns the Witch's power against herself, 
 and she descends to the infernal regions, where she is punningly 
 declared to have gained the title of Duchess of Helvetia. The 
 six champions are released, and the illustrious seven companions 
 go forth in search of adventures, with Suckabus for a " Squire." 
 The father of the latter gives him some counsel at parting, which 
 is a parody on the advice of Polonius to Laertes. " Lie," says 
 Torpax : — 
 
 " Lie to great profit, borrow, pay no debts, 
 Cheat and purloin, they are gaming dicers' bets." 
 
 " If Cottington outdo me," says the son, " he be-whipt." And 
 so, after the election of St. George as the seventh champion of 
 Christendom, ends one of the longest acts that Bull or Cockpit 
 was ever asked to witness and applaud. 
 
 The next act is briefer but far more bustling. We are in that 
 convenient empire of Trebizond, where everything happened which 
 never took place, according to the romances. The whole city is 
 in a state of consternation at the devastations of a detestable 
 'dragon, and a lion, his friend and co-partner. The nobles bewail 
 the fact in hexameters, or at least in lines meant to do duty for 
 them ; and the common people bewail the fact epigrammatically, 
 and describe the deaths of all who have attempted to slay the 
 monsters, with a broadness of effect that doubtless was acknowl- 
 edged by roars of laughter. Things grow worse daily, the fiends 
 look down, and general gloom is settling thick upon the empire, 
 when Andrew of Scotland and Anthony of Italy arrive, send in 
 their cards, and announce their determination to slay both these 
 monsters. 
 
 Such visitors are received with more than ordinary welcome. 
 The emperor is regardless of expense in his liberality, and his 
 
128 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 daughter Violetta whispers to her maid Carinthia that she is 
 already in love with one of them, but will not say which ; a remark 
 which is answered by the pert maid, that she is in love with both, 
 and would willingly take either. All goes on joyously until in 
 the course of conversation, and it is by no means remarkable for 
 brilliancy, the two knights let fall that they are Christians. Now, 
 you must know, that the established Church at Trebizond at this 
 time, which is at any period, was heathen. The court appeared 
 to principally affect Apollo and Diana, while the poorer people 
 put up with Pan, and abused him for denouncing may-poles! 
 Well, the Christians had never been emancipated ; nay, they had 
 never been tolerated in Trebizond, and it was contrary to law that 
 the country should be saved, even in its dire extremity, by Chris- 
 tian help. The knights are doomed to die, unless they will turn 
 heathens. This, of course, they decline with a dignified scorn ; 
 whereupon, in consideration of their nobility, they are permitted 
 to choose their own executioners. They make choice of the ladies, 
 but Violetta and Carinthia protest that they can not think of such 
 a thing. Their high-church sire is disgusted with their want of 
 orthodoxy, and he finally yields to the knights their swords, that 
 they may do justice on themselves as the law requires. But 
 Andrew and Anthony are no sooner armed again than they clear 
 their way to liberty, and the drop scene falls upon the rout of the 
 whole empire of Trebizond. 
 
 The third act is of gigantic length, and deals with giants. There 
 is mourning in Tartary. David has killed the king's son in a tour- 
 nament, and the king remarks, like a retired apothecary, that 
 "Time's plaster must draw the sore before he can feel peace 
 again." To punish David, he is compelled to undertake the de- 
 struction of the enchanter Ormandine, who lived in a cavern fortress 
 with " some selected friends." The prize of success is the reversion 
 of the kingdom of Tartary to the Welsh knight. The latter goes 
 upon his mission, but he is so long about it that our old friend Cho- 
 rus enters, to explain what he affirms they have not time to act — 
 namely, the great deeds of St. George, who, as we learn, had slain 
 the never-to-be-forgotten dragon, rescued Sabrina, been cheated of 
 his reward, and held in prison seven years upon bread and water. 
 His squire, Suckabus, alludes to giants whom he and his master 
 
THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM. 129 
 
 had previously slain, and whose graves were as large as Tothill 
 Fields. He also notices " Ploydon's law," and other matters, that 
 could hardly have been contemporaneous with the palmy days of 
 the kingdom of Tartary. Meanwhile, David boldly assaults 
 Ormandine, but the enchanter surrounds him with some delicious- 
 looking nymphs, all thinly clad and excessively seductive ; and we 
 are sorry to say that the Welsh champion, not being cavalierly 
 mounted on proper principles, yields to seduction, and after various 
 falls under various temptations, is carried to bed by the rollicking 
 nymph Drunkenness. 
 
 But never did good, though fallen, men want for a friend at a 
 pinch. St. George is in the neighborhood; and seedy as he is 
 after seven years in the dark, with nothing more substantial by 
 way of food than bread, and nothing more exhilarating for bever- 
 age than aqua pura, the champion of England does David's work, 
 and with more generosity than justice, makes him a present of the 
 enchanter's head. David presents the same to the King of Tar- 
 tary, that, according to promise pledged in case of such a present 
 being made, he may be proclaimed heir-apparent to the Tartarian 
 throne. With this bit of cheating, the long third act comes to an 
 end. 
 
 The fourth act is taken up with an only partially successful at- 
 tack by James, David, and Patrick, on a cruel enchanter, Argalio, 
 who at least is put to flight, and that, at all events, as the knights 
 remark, is something to be thankful for. The fifth and grand act 
 reveals to us the powerful magician, Brandron, in his castle. He 
 holds in thrall the King of Macedon — a little circumstance not 
 noted in history ; and he has in his possession the seven daughters 
 of his majesty transformed into swans. The swans contrive to 
 make captives of six of the knights as they were taking a "gentle 
 walk" upon his ramparts. They are impounded as trespassers, 
 and Brandron, who has some low comedy business with Suckubus, 
 will not release them but upon condition that they fight honestly 
 in his defence against St. George. The six duels take place, and 
 of course the champion of England overcomes all his friendly an- 
 tagonists ; whereupon Brandron, with his club, beats out his own 
 brains, in presence of the audience. 
 
 At this crisis, the King of Macedon appears, restored to power, 
 
 9 
 
130 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 and inquires after his daughters. St. George and the rest, with 
 a use of the double negatives that would have shocked Lindley 
 Murray, declare 
 
 " We never knew, nor saw no ladies here." 
 
 The swans, however, soon take their pristine form, and the three 
 daughters appear fresh from their plumes and their long bath upon 
 the lake. Upon this follows the smart dialogue which we extract 
 as a sample of how sharply the King of Macedon looked to his 
 family interests, and how these champion knights were " taken in" 
 before they well knew how the fact was. accomplished. 
 
 Mac. Reverend knights, may we desire to know which of you are unmar- 
 ried? 
 
 Ant., Den., and Pat. We are. 
 
 Geo,. Then here's these ladies, take 'era to your beds. 
 
 Mac. George highly honors aged Macedon. 
 
 The three Knights. But can the ladies' love accord with us ? 
 
 The three Ladies. Most willingly ! 
 
 The three Knights. We thus then seal our contract. 
 
 Geo.. Which thus we ratifie. 
 
 Sit with the brides, most noble Macedon ; 
 And since kind fortune sent such happy chance, 
 We'll grace your nuptials with a soldier's dance. 
 
 And, fore George, as our fathers used to say, they make a night 
 of it. The piece ends with a double military reel, and the audiences 
 at the Bull and the Cockpit probably whistled the tune as they 
 wended their way homeward to crab-apple ale and spiced ginger- 
 bread. 
 
 Next to the Champions of Christendom, the King's Knight 
 Champion of England is perhaps the most important personage — 
 in the point of view of chivalry, I think it is some French author 
 who has said, that revolutions resemble the game of chess, where 
 the pawns or pieces (les pions) may cause the ruin of the king, 
 save him, or take his place, Now the champ pion, as this French 
 remark reminds me, is nothing more than the field pion, pawn, or 
 piece, put forward to fight in the king's quarrel. 
 
 The family of the Champion of England bears, it may be ob- 
 served, exactly the name which suits a calling so derived. The 
 appellation "Dymoke" is derived from Ve Umhrosa Quercu ; I 
 
THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM. 131 
 
 should rather say it is the translation of it ; and Harry De Um- 
 brosa Quercu is only Harry of the Shady or Dim Oak, a very apt 
 dwelling-place and name for one whose chief profession was that 
 of field-pawn to the king. 
 
 This derivation or adaptation of names from original Latin sur- 
 names is common enough, and some amusing pages might be writ- 
 ten on the matter, in addition to what has been so cleverly put 
 together by Mr. Mark Anthony Lower, in his volume devoted 
 especially to an elucidation of English surnames. 
 
 The royal champions came in with the Conquest. The Norman 
 dukes had theirs in the family of Marmion — ancestors of that 
 Marmion of Sir Walter Scott's, who commits forgery, like a com- 
 mon knave of more degenerate times. The Conqueror conferred 
 sundry broad lands in England on his champions ; among others, 
 the lands adjacent to, as well as the castle of Tarn worth. Near 
 this place was the first nunnery established in this country. The 
 occupants were the nuns of St. Edith, at Polesworth. Robert de 
 Marmion used the ladies very " cavalierly," ejected them from their 
 house, and deprived them of their property. But such victims 
 had a wonderfully clever way of recovering their own. 
 
 My readers may possibly remember how a certain Eastern pot- 
 entate injured the church, disgusted the Christians generally, and 
 irritated especially that Simeon Stylites who sat on the summit of 
 a pillar, night and day, and never moved from his abiding-place. 
 The offender had a vision, in which he not only saw the indignant 
 Simeon, but was cudgelled almost into pulp by the simulacre of 
 that saint. I very much doubt if Simeon himself was in his airy 
 dwelling-place at that particular hour of the night. I was remind- 
 ed of this by what happened to the duke's champion, Robert de 
 Marmion. He was roused from a deep sleep by the vision of a 
 stout lady, who announced herself as the wronged St. Edith, and 
 who proceeded to show her opinion of De Marmion's conduct 
 toward her nuns, by pommelling his ribs with her crosier, until 
 she had covered his side with bruises, and himself with repent- 
 ance. What strong-armed young monk played St. Edith that 
 night, it is impossible to say ; but that he enacted the part success- 
 fully, is seen from the fact that Robert brought back the ladies to 
 Polesworth, and made ample restitution of all of which they had 
 
132 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 been deprived. The nuns, in return, engaged with alacrity to inter 
 all defunct Marmions within the chapter-house of their abbey, for 
 nothing. 
 
 With the manor of Tani worth in Warwickshire, Marmion held 
 that of Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire. The latter was held of the 
 King by grand sergeantry, " to perform the office of champion at 
 the King's coronation." At his death he was succeeded by a son 
 of the same Christian name, who served the monks of Chester pre- 
 cisely as his sire had treated the nuns at Polesworth. This second 
 Robert fortified his ill-acquired prize — the priory; but happening 
 to fall into one of the newly-made ditches, when inspecting the for- 
 tifications, a soldier of the Earl of Chester killed him, without diffi- 
 culty, as he lay with broken hip and thigh, at the bottom of the 
 fosse. The next successor, a third Robert, was something of a 
 judge, with a dash of the warrior, too, and he divided his estates 
 between two sons, both Roberts, by different mothers. The eldest 
 son and chief possessor, after a bustling and emphatically " bat- 
 tling" life, was succeeded by his son Philip, who fell into some 
 trouble in the reign of Henry III. for presuming to act as a judge 
 or justice of the peace, without being duly commissioned. This 
 Philip was, nevertheless, one of the most faithful servants to a 
 king who found so many faithless ; and if honors were heaped 
 upon him in consequence, he fairly merited them all. He was 
 happy, too, in marriage, for he espoused a lady sole heiress to a 
 large estate, and who brought him four daughters, co-heiresses to 
 the paternal and maternal lands of the Marmions and the Kilpecs. 
 
 This, however, is wandering. Let us once more return to or- 
 derly illustration. In St. George I have shown how pure romance 
 deals with a hero. In the next chapter I will endeavor to show 
 in what spirit the lives and actions of real English heroes have 
 been treated by native historians. In so doing, I will recount the 
 story of Sir Guy of Warwick, after their fashion, with original il- 
 lustrations and " modern instances." 
 
SIR GUY OF WARWICK. 133 
 
 SIR GUY OF WARWICK, 
 
 AND WHAT BEFELL HIM. 
 
 " His desires 
 Are higher than his state, and his deserts 
 Not much short of the most he can desire.' 
 
 Chapman's Byron's Conspiracy. 
 
 The Christian name of Guy was once an exceedingly popular 
 name in the county of York. I have never heard a reason as- 
 signed for this, but I think it may have originated in admiration 
 of the deeds and the man whose appellation and reputation have 
 survived to our times. I do not allude to Guy Faux ; that young 
 gentleman was the Father of Perverts, but by no means the first 
 of the Guys. 
 
 The " Master Guy" of whom I am treating here, or, rather, 
 about to treat, was a youth whose family originally came from 
 Northumberland. That family was, in one sense, more noble than 
 the imperial family of Muscovy, for its members boasted not only 
 of good principles, but of sound teeth. 
 
 The teeth and principles of the Romanoffs are known to be in a 
 distressing state of dilapidation. 
 
 Well ; these Northumbrian Guys having lived extremely fast, 
 and being compelled to compound with their creditors, by plunder- 
 ing the latter, and paying them zero in the pound, migrated south- 
 ward, and finally settled in Warwickshire. Now, the head of the 
 house had a considerable share of common sense about him, and 
 after much suffering in a state of shabby gentility, he not only sent 
 his daughters out to earn their own livelihood, but, to the intense 
 disgust of his spouse, hired himself as steward to that noble gentle- 
 man the Earl of Warwick. " My blood is as good as ever it was," 
 said he to the fine lady his wife. " It is the blood of an upper 
 
134 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 servant," cried she, " and my father's daughter is the spouse of a 
 flunkey. 
 
 The husband was not discouraged ; and he not only opened his 
 office in his patron's castle but he took his only son with him, and 
 made him his first clerk. This son's name was Guy ; and he was 
 rather given to bird-catching, hare-snaring, and " gentism" gener- 
 ally. He had been a precocious youth from some months previous 
 to his birth, and had given his lady -mother such horrid annoyance, 
 that she was always dreaming of battles, fiery-cars, strong-smelling 
 dragons, and the wrathful Mars. " Well," she used to remark to 
 her female friends, while the gentlemen were over their wine, " I 
 expect that this boy" (she had made up her mind to that) " will 
 make a noise in the world, draw bills upon his father, and be the 
 
 terror of maid-servants. Why, do you know " and here she 
 
 became confidential, and I do not feel authorized to repeat what 
 she then communicated. 
 
 But Master Guy, the " little stranger" alluded to, proved better 
 than was expected. He might have been considerably worse, and 
 yet would not have been so bad as maternal prophecy had de- 
 picted him. At eight years . . . but I hear you say, " When 
 did all this occur ?" Well, it was in a November's " Morning 
 Post," that announcement was made of the birth ; and as to the 
 year, Master Guy has given it himself in the old metrical 
 romance, 
 
 " Two hundred and twenty years and odd, 
 After our Savior Christ his birth, 
 When King Athelstan wore the crown, 
 I lived here upon the earth." 
 
 At eight years old, I was about to remark, young Guy was the 
 most insufferable puppy of his district. He won all the prizes 
 for athletic sports ; and by the time he was sixteen there was not 
 a man in all England who dared accept his challenge to wrestle 
 with both arms, against him using only one. 
 
 It was at this time that he kept his father's books and a leash 
 of hounds, with the latter of which he performed such extraordi- 
 nary feats, that the Earl of Warwick invited him from the stew- 
 ard's room to his own table ; where Guy's father changed his plate, 
 and Master Guy twitched him by the beard as he did it. 
 
SIR GUY OP WARWICK. 135 
 
 At the head of the earl's table sat his daughter " Phillis the 
 Fair," a lady who, like her namesake in the song, was " sometimes 
 forward, sometimes coy," and altogether so sweetly smiling and so 
 beguiling, that when the earl asked Guy if he would not come and 
 hunt (the dinner was at 10 a. m.), Guy answered, as the French- 
 man did who could not bear the sport, with a Merci, fai He ! and 
 affecting an iliac seizure, hinted at the necessity of staying at home. 
 
 The youth forthwith was carried to bed. Phillis sent him a 
 posset, the earl sent him his own physician ; and this learned gen- 
 tleman, after much perplexity veiled beneath the most affable and 
 confident humbug, wrote a prescription which, if it could do the 
 patient no good would do him no harm. He was a most skilful 
 man, and his patients almost invariably recovered under this treat- 
 ment. He occasionally sacrificed one or two when a consultation 
 was held, and he was called upon to prescribe secundum artem ; 
 but he compensated for this professional slaying by, in other cases, 
 leaving matters to Nature, who was the active partner in his firm, 
 and of whose success he was not in the least degree jealous. So, 
 when he had written the prescription, Master Guy fell a discour- 
 sing of the passion of love, and that with a completeness and a 
 variety of illustration as though he were the author of the chapter 
 on that subject in Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." The 
 doctor heard him to the end, gently rubbing one side of his nose 
 the while with the index-finger of his right hand ; and when his 
 patient had concluded, the medical gentleman smiled, hummed 
 " Phillis is my only joy," and left the room with his head nodding 
 like a Chinese Mandarin's. 
 
 By this time the four o'clock sun was making green and gold 
 pillars of the trees in the neighboring wood, and Guy got up, 
 looked at the falling leaves, and thought of the autumn of his hopes. 
 He whistled " Down, derry, down," with a marked emphasis on 
 the down ; but suddenly his hopes again sprang up, as he beheld 
 Phillis among her flower-beds, engaged in the healthful occupation 
 which a sublime poet has given to the heroine whom he names, 
 and whose action he describes, when he tells us that 
 
 " Miss Dinah was a-walking in her garding one day." 
 
 Guy trussed his points, pulled up his hose, set his bonnet smartly 
 on his head, clapped a bodkin on his thigh, and then walked 
 
136 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 into the garden with the air of the once young D'Egville in a 
 ballet, looking after a nymph — which indeed was a pursuit he was 
 much given to when he was old D'Egville, and could no longer 
 bound throught his ballets, because he was stiff in the joints. 
 
 Guy, of course, went down on one knee, and at once plunged 
 into the most fiery style of declaration, but Phillis had not read 
 the Mrs. Chapone of that day for notliing. She brought him 
 back to prose and propriety, and then the two started afresh, and 
 they did talk ! Guy felt a little " streaked" at first, but he soon 
 recovered his self-possession, and it would have been edifying for 
 the young mind to have heard how these two pretty things spoke 
 to, and answered each other in moral maxims stolen from the top 
 pages of their copy-books. They poured them out by the score, 
 and the proverbial philosophy they enunciated was really the origin 
 of the book so named by Martin Tupper. He took it all from 
 Phillis and Guy, whose descendants, of the last name, were so 
 famous for their school-books. This I expect Mr. Tupper will 
 (not) mention in his next edition. 
 
 After much profitable interchange of this sort of article, the 
 lady gently hinted that Master Guy was not indifferent to her, but 
 that he was of inferior birth, yet of qualities that made him equal 
 with her ; adding, that hitherto he had done little but kill other 
 people's game, whereas there were nobler deeds to be accom- 
 plished. And then she bade him go in search of perilous adven- 
 tures, winding up with the toast and sentiment, " Master Guy, 
 eagles do not care to catch flies." 
 
 Reader, if you have ever seen the prince of pantomimists, Mr. 
 Payne, tear the hair of his theatrical wig in a fit of amorous de- 
 spair, you may have some idea as to the intensity with which 
 Master Guy illustrated his own desperation. He stamped the 
 ground with such energy that all the hitherto quiet aspens fell 
 a-shaking, and their descendants have ever since maintained the 
 same fashion. Phillis fell a-crying at this demonstration, and 
 softened considerably. After a lapse of five minutes, she had 
 blushingly directed Master Guy to " speak to papa." 
 
 Now, of all horrible interviews, this perhaps is the most horrible. 
 Nelson used to say that there was only one thing on earth which 
 he dreaded, and that was dining with a mayor and corporation. 
 
SIR GUY OF WARWICK. 137 
 
 Doubtless it is dreadful, but what is it compared with looking a 
 grave man in the face, who has no sentiment into him, and whose 
 first remark is sure to be, " Well, sir, be good enough to tell me — 
 what can you settle on my daughter ? What can you do to secure 
 her happiness ?" 
 
 " Well," said Guy, in reply to this stereotyped remark, " I can 
 kill the Dun cow on the heath. She has killed many herself 
 who've tried the trick on her ; and last night she devoured crops 
 of clover, and twice as many fields of barley on your lordship's 
 estate." 
 
 " First kill the cow, and then ," said the earl with a smile ; 
 
 and Shakespeare had the echo of this speech in his ear, when he 
 began the fifth act of his Othello. Now Guy was not easily 
 daunted. If I cared to make a pun, I might easily have said 
 " cowed," but in a grave and edifying narrative this loose method 
 of writing would be extremely improper. Guy, then, was not 
 a coward — nay, nothing is hidden under the epithet. He tossed 
 a little in bed that night as he thought the matter over, and 
 the next morning made sheets of paper as crumpled as the cow's 
 horns, as he rejected the plans of assault he had designed upon 
 them, and sat uncertain as to what he should do in behoof of his 
 own fortune. He at length determined to go and visit the terrible 
 animal "incognito." It is the very word used by one of the 
 biographers of Guy, an anonymous Northumbrian, who published 
 the life on a broad sheet, with a picture of Master Guy which 
 might have frightened the cow, and which is infinitely more ugly. 
 Neither the black-letter poem, the old play, nor the pamphlets or 
 ballads, use the term incognito, but all declare that Guy proceeded 
 with much caution, and a steel cuiras over his jerkin. I mention 
 these things, because without correctness my narrative would be 
 worthless. I am not imaginative, and would not embroider a plain 
 suit of fact upon any account. 
 
 Guy's carefulness is to be proved. Here was a cow that had 
 been more destructive than ever Red Riding Hood's Wolf was — 
 that Count Wolf, who used to snap up young maidens, and lived 
 as careless of respectability as was to be expected of a man once 
 attached to a " marching regiment," and who turned monk. The 
 cow was twelve feet high, from the hoof to the shoulder, and 
 
138 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 eighteen feet long, from the neck to the root of the tail. All the 
 dragons ever heard of had never been guilty of such devastation to 
 life and property as this terrible cow. Guy looked at her and did 
 not like her. The cow detected him and rushed at her prey. Guy 
 was active, attacked her in front and rear, as the allies did the forts 
 of Bomarsund; very considerably confused her by burying his 
 battle-axe in her skull ; hung on by her tail as she attempted to 
 fly ; and finally gave her the coup de grace by passing his rapier 
 rapidly and repeatedly through her especially vulnerable point 
 behind the ear. In proof of the fact, the scene of the conflict still 
 bears the name of Dunsmore Heath, and that is a wider basis of 
 proof than many " facts" stand upon, to which we are required by 
 plodding teachers to give assent. 
 
 Besides, there is a rib of this very cow exhibited at Bristol. 
 To be sure it is not a rib now of a cow, but out of reverence to 
 the antiquity of the assertion which allegedly makes it so, I think 
 we are bound to believe what is thus advanced. Not that I do 
 myself, but that is of no consequence. I have a strong idea that 
 the cow was not a cow, but a countess (not a Countess Cowper), 
 who made war in her own right, lived a disreputable life, was as 
 destructive to wealthy young lords as a Lorette, and won whole 
 estates by cheating at ecarte. Guy took a hand,* and beat her. 
 
 Poor Master Guy, he was as hardly used as ever Jacob was, 
 and much he meditated thereupon in the fields at eventide. The 
 stern earl would by no means give his consent to the marriage of 
 his daughter with the young champion, until the latter had per- 
 formed some doughtier deeds than this. The boy (he was still in 
 his teens) took heart of grace, divided a crooked sixpence with 
 Phillis, and straightway sailed for Normandy, where he arrived, 
 after meeting as many thieves by the way as if he had walked 
 about for a month in the streets of Dover. But Master Guy killed 
 all he met ; there is a foolish judicial, not to say social, prejudice 
 against our doing the same with the bandits of Dover. I can not 
 conjecture why ; perhaps they have a privilege under some of the 
 city companies, whereby they are constituted the legal skinners 
 of all sojourners among them, carrying filthy lucre. 
 
 Guy met in Normandy with the last person he could have ex- 
 pected to fall in with — no other than the Emperor of Almayne, 
 
SIR GUY OF WARWICK. 139 
 
 a marvellously ubiquitous person to be met with in legends, and 
 frequently encountered in the seaports of inland towns. The 
 historians are here a little at issue. One says that Master Guy 
 having found a certain Dorinda tied to the stake, and awaiting a 
 champion who would stake his own life for her rescue, inquired 
 the " antecedents" of the position. Dorinda, it appears, had been 
 as rudely used as young lady possibly could be, " by the Duke 
 of Blois, his son," and the duke was so enraged at Dorinda's charge 
 against his favorite Otto, that he condemned her to be burned 
 alive, unless a champion appeared in time to rescue her by defeat- 
 ing the aforesaid Otto in single combat. Guy, of course, transacted 
 the little business successfully ; spoiled Otto's beauty by slashing 
 his nose ; and so enchanted Dorinda, that she never accused her 
 champion of doing aught displeasing to her. 
 
 Anxious as I am touching the veracity of tins narrative, I have 
 recorded what biographers state, though not in their own words. 
 But I must add, that in some of the histories this episode about 
 Dorinda is altogether omitted, and we only hear of Master Guy 
 appearing in panoply at a tournament given by the Emperor of 
 Allemagne, in Normandy — which is much the same, gentle reader, 
 as if I were, at your cost, to give a concert and ball, with a supper 
 from Farrance's, and all, not in my house, but in yours. Never- 
 theless, in Normandy the tournament was held, and the paternal 
 Emperor of Allemagne, having then a daughter, Blanche, of whom 
 he wished to get rid, he set her up as the prize of the conquering 
 knight in the tournament. 
 
 I think I hear you remark something as to the heathenness of 
 the custom. But it is a custom sacred to these times ; and our 
 neighbors (for of course neither you nor I could condescend to 
 such manners) get up evening tournaments of whist, quadrilles, 
 and a variety of singing — of every variety but the good and in- 
 telligible, and at these modern tournaments given for the express 
 purpose which that respectable old gentleman, the Emperor of 
 Allemagne, had in view when he opened his lists ; the " girls" are 
 the prizes of the carpet-knights. So gentlemen, faites voire jeu, 
 as the philosopher who presided at Frescati's used to say — faites 
 voire jeu, Messieurs ; and go in and win. Perhaps if you read 
 Cowper, you may be the better armed against loss in such a conflict. 
 
140 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 I need not say that Master Guy's good sword, which gleamed 
 like lightning in the arena, and rained blows faster than ever Mr. 
 Blanchard rained them, in terrific Coburg combats, upon the vul- 
 nerable crest of Mr. Bradley — won for him the peerless prize — < 
 to say nothing of a dog and a falcon thrown in. Master Guy 
 rather ungallantly declined having the lady, though her father 
 would have given him carte blanche ; he looked at her, muttered 
 her name, and then murmured, " Blanche, as thou art, yet art 
 thou black-a-moor, compared with my Phillis ;" — and with this 
 unchivalric avowal, for it was a part of chivalry to say a thing 
 and think another, he returned to England, carrying with him the 
 " Spaniel King's Charls," as French authors write it, and the 
 falcon, with a ring and a perch, like a huge parroquet. 
 
 Master Guy entered Warwick in a "brougham," as we now 
 might say, and sorely was he put to it with the uneasy bird. At 
 every lurch of the vehicle, out flapped the wings, elongated was 
 the neck, and Master Guy had to play at " dodge" with the falcon, 
 who was intent upon darting his terrific beak into the cavalier's 
 nose. At length, however, the castle was safely reached; the 
 presents were deposited at the feet of Phillis the Fair, and Guy 
 hoped, like the Peri, and also like that gentle spirit to be disap- 
 pointed, that the gates of paradise were about to open. But not 
 so, Phillis warmly praised his little regard for that pert minx, 
 Blanche, or Blanc d'Espagne, as she wickedly added ; and she 
 patted the spaniel, and offered sugar to the falcon ; and, after the 
 dinner to which Guy was invited, she intimated in whispers, that 
 they were both "too young as yet" (not that she believed so), and 
 that more deeds must be done by Guy, ere the lawyers would be 
 summoned by her papa to achieve some of their own. 
 
 The youthful Guy went forth " reluctant but resolved," and he 
 ivoidd have sung as he went along, 
 
 "Elle a quinze ans, moi j'en ai seize," 
 
 of Sedaine and Gretry, only neither poet nor composer, nor the 
 opera of Richard Coeur de Lion, had yet appeared to gladden 
 heart and ear. But the sentiment was there, and perhaps Sedaine 
 knew of it when he penned the words. However this may be, 
 Master Guy, though soft of heart, was not so of arm, for on this 
 
SIR GUY OF WARWICK. 141 
 
 present cause of errantry he enacted such deeds that their very 
 enumeration makes one breathless. His single sword cleared 
 whole forests of hordes of brigands, through whose sides his 
 trenchant blade passed as easily as the sabre, when held by Cor- 
 poral Sutton, through a dead sheep. Our hero was by no means 
 particular as to what he did, provided he was doing something ; 
 nor what cause he fought for, provided there were a cause and a 
 fight. Thus we find him aiding the Duke of Louvain against his 
 old friend the Emperor of Allemagne. He led the Duke's forces, 
 slew thousands upon thousands of the enemy, and, as though he 
 had the luck of a modern Muscovite army, did not lose more than 
 " one man," with slight damage to the helmet of a second. 
 
 Master Guy, not yet twenty, surpassed the man whom Mr. 
 Thiers calls " ce pur Anglais" Mr. Pitt, for he became a prime 
 minister ere he had attained his majority. In that capacity he 
 negotiated a peace for the Duke with the Emperor. The two 
 potentates were so satisfied with the negotiator, that out of com- 
 pliment they offered him the command of their united fleet against 
 the Pagan Soldan of Byzantium. They did not at all expect that 
 he would accept it ; but then they were not aware that Master Guy 
 had much of the spirit which Sidney Smith, in after-years, dis- 
 cerned in Lord John Russell — and the enterprising Guy accepted 
 the command of the entire fleet, with quite an entire confidence. 
 
 He did therewith, if chroniclers are to be credited, more than 
 we might reasonably expect from Lord John Russell, were that 
 statesman to be in command of a Channel squadron. Having 
 swept the sea, he rather prematurely, if dates are to be respected, 
 nearly annihilated Mohammedanism — and he was as invincible and 
 victorious against every kind of Pagan. It was in the East that 
 he overthrew in single combat, the giants Colbron and his brother 
 Mongadora. He was resting after this contest, and leaning like 
 the well-breathed Hotspur, upon his sword, at the entrance to his 
 tent, when the Turkish governor Esdalante, approaching him, po- 
 litely begged that he might take his head, as he had promised the 
 same to an Osmanlee lady, who was in a condition of health which 
 might be imperilled by refusal. Master Guy as politely bade him 
 take it if he could, and therewith, they went at it " like French 
 falconers," and Guy took off the head of his opponent instead of 
 
142 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 losing his own. This little matter being settled, Guy challenged 
 the infidel Soldan himself, putting Christianity against Islamism, 
 on the issue, and thus professing to decide questions of faith as 
 Galerius did when he left Olympus and Calvary to depend upon 
 a vote of the Eoman senate. Master Guy, being thrice armed by 
 the justness of his quarrel, subdued the infidel Soldan, but the lat- 
 ter, to show, as we are told, his insuperable hatred for Christian- 
 ity, took handfuls of his own blood, and cast it in the face of his 
 conqueror — and no doubt here, the victor had in his mind the true 
 story of Julian insulting " the Galilean." We thus see how his- 
 tory is made to contribute to legend. 
 
 And now the appetite of the errant lover grew by what it fed 
 upon. He mixed himself up in every quarrel, and could not see 
 a lion and a dragon quietly settling their disputes in a wood, by 
 dint of claws, without striking in for the lion, slaying his foe, and 
 receiving with complacency the acknowledgments of the nobler beast. 
 
 He achieved something more useful when he met Lord Terry 
 in a wood, looking for his wife who had been carried off by a 
 score of ravishers. "While the noble lord sat down on a mossy 
 bank, like a gentleman in a melodrama, Guy rescued his wife in 
 his presence, and slew all the ravishers, " in funeral order," the 
 youngest first. He subsequently stood godfather to his friend 
 Terry's child, and as I am fond of historical parallels, I may notice 
 that Sir Walter Scott performed the same office for a Teriy, who 
 if he was not a lord, often represented them, to say nothing of 
 monarchs and other characters. 
 
 Master Guy's return to England was a little retarded by an- 
 other characteristic adventure. As he was passing through Lou- 
 vain, he found Duke Otto besieging his father in his own castle — 
 " governor" of the castle and the Duke. Now nothing shocked 
 Master Guy so much as filial ingratitude, and despite all that Otto 
 could urge about niggardly allowance, losses at play, debts of 
 honor, and the parsimony of the " governor," our champion made 
 common cause with the " indignant parent," and not only mortally 
 wounded Otto, but, before the latter died, Guy brought him to a 
 " sense of his situation," and Otto died in a happy frame of mind, 
 leaving all his debts to his father. The legacy was by way of a 
 " souvenir," and certainly the governor never forgot it. As for 
 
SIR GUY OF WARWICK. 143 
 
 Guy, he killed the famous boar of Louvain, before he departed for 
 England, and as he drew his sword from the animal's flank, he 
 remarked, there lies a greater boar, and not a less beast than Otto 
 himself. However, he took the head and hams with him, for 
 Phillis was fond of both ; and as she was wont to say, if there 
 was anything that could seduce her, it was brawn ! 
 
 When Master Guy stepped ashore at Harwich, where that am- 
 phibious town .now lies soaking, deputations from all quarters were 
 awaiting him, to ask his succor against some terrible dragon in the 
 north that was laying waste all the land, and laying hold of all the 
 waists which the men there wished to enclose. King Athelstan 
 was then at York hoping to terrify the indomitable beast by power 
 of an army, which in combat with the noxious creature made as 
 long a tail, in retreat, as the dragon itself. 
 
 Now whatever this nuisance was which so terribly plagued the 
 good folks in the North, whether a dragon with a tongue thirty 
 feet long, or anything else equally hard to imagine, it is matter 
 of fact that our Master Guy assuredly got the better of it. On 
 his return he met an ovation in York ; Athelstan entertained him 
 at a banquet, covered him with honor, endowed him with a good 
 round sum, and thus all the newborn male children in the county 
 became Guys. At least two thirds of them received the popular 
 name, and for many centuries it remained in favor, until disgrace 
 was brought upon it by the York proctor's son, whose e&igy still 
 glides through our streets on each recurring 5th of November. 
 
 I will not pause on this matter. I will only add that the Earl 
 of Warwick, finding Guy a man whom the King delighted to honor, 
 accepted him for a son-in-law ; and then, ever wise, and civil, and 
 proper, he discreetly died. The King made Guy Earl of War- 
 wick, in his place, and our hero being now a married man, he of 
 course ceased to be Master Guy. 
 
 And here I might end my legend, but that it has a moral in it 
 Guy did a foolish but a common thing, he launched out into ex- 
 travagant expenses, and, suddenly, he found himself sick, sad, and 
 insolvent. Whether, therewith, his wife was soured, creditors 
 troublesome, and bailiffs presuming, it is hard to say. One thing, 
 however, is certain, that to save himself from all three, Earl Guy 
 did what nobles often do now, in the same predicament, " went 
 
144 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 abroad." Guy, however, travelled in primitive style. He went 
 on foot, and made his inn o'nights in church-yards, where he collo- 
 quized with the skulls after the fashion of Hamlet with the skull 
 of " poor Yorick." He had given out that he was going to Jeru- 
 salem, but hearing that the Danes were besieging Athelstan at 
 Winchester, he went thither, and, in modest disguise, routed them 
 with his own unaided hand. Among his opponents, he met with 
 the giant Colbron whom he had previously slain in Orient lands, 
 and the two fought their battles o'er again, and with such exactly 
 similar results as to remind one of the peculiar philosophy of Mr. 
 Boatswain Cheeks. 
 
 This appearance of Colbron in two places is a fine illustration 
 of the " myth," and I mention it expressly for the benefit of the 
 next edition of the Right Reverend Doctor Whateley's " Historical 
 Fallacies." But to resume. 
 
 Guy, imparting a confidential statement of his identity and in- 
 tentions to the King, left him, to take up his abode in a cave, in a 
 cliff, near his residence ; and at the gates of his own castle he re- 
 ceived, in the guise of a mendicant, alms of money and bread, from 
 the hands of his wife. I strongly suspect that the foundation of 
 this section of our legend rests upon the probable fact that Phillis 
 was of that quality which is said to belong to gray mares ; and that 
 she led Guy a life which made him a miserable Guy indeed ; and 
 that the poor henpecked man took to bad company abroad, and 
 met with small allowance of everything but reproach at home 
 And so he " died." 
 
 A dramatic author of Charles I.'s reign, has, however, resusci- 
 tated him in " A Tragical History of Guy, Earl of Warwick," en- 
 acted several times in presence of that monarch, and professedly 
 written by a certain " B. J.," whom I do not at all suspect of being 
 Ben Jonson. The low comedy portion of this tragic drama is of 
 the filthiest sort, dealing in phrases and figures which I can hardly 
 conceive would now be tolerated in the lowest den of St. Giles's, 
 certainly not out of it. If Charles heard this given more than 
 once, as the titlepage intimates, " more shame for him." If his 
 Queen was present, she haply may not have understood the verba 
 ad summam caveam spectantia, and if a daughter could have been 
 at the royal entertainment, why then the very idea revolts one, 
 
SIR GUY OP WARWICK. 145 
 
 and pity is almost lost in indignation. That the author himself 
 thought well of the piece, which he printed in 1661, is proved by 
 the defiant epigraph which says : — 
 
 " Carpere vel noli nostra vel ede tua." 
 
 I must not devote much space to a retrospective review of this 
 piece, particularly as the action begins after Guy has ceased to be 
 " Master," and when, on his announcement of going to Jerusalem 
 (perhaps to the Jews to do a little business in bills), Phillis makes 
 some matronly remarks in a prospective sense, and a liberty of 
 illustration which would horrify a monthly nurse. 
 
 However, Guy goes forth and meets with a giant so huge, that 
 his squire Sparrow says it required four-and-twenty men to throw 
 mustard in his mouth when he dined. From such giants, Heaven 
 protects the errant Guy, and with a troop of fairies, wafts him to 
 Jerusalem. Here he finds Shamurath of Babylon assaulting the 
 city, but Guy heaps miracle on miracle of valor, and produces such 
 astounding results that Shamurath, who is a spectator of the deeds 
 and the doer, inquires, with a suspicion of Connaught in the accent 
 of the inquiry, " What divil or man is this ?" 
 
 The infidel is more astonished than ever when Guy, after de- 
 feating him, takes him into controversy, and laying hold of him as 
 Dr. Cumming does of Romanism, so buffets his belief that the 
 soldier, fairly out of breath and argument, gives in, and declares 
 himself a Christian, on conviction. 
 
 During one-and-twenty years, Guy has a restless life through 
 the five acts of this edifying tragedy, and when he is seen again in 
 England, overcoming the Danes, he intimates to Athelstan that he 
 has six years more to pass in disguise, ere a vow, of which we 
 have before heard nothing, will be fulfilled. Athelstan receives 
 all that is said, in confidence ; and promises affably, " upon my 
 word," not to betray the secret. Guy is glad to hear that Phillis 
 is " pretty well ;" and then he takes up his residence as I have be- 
 fore told, according to the legend. He and an Angel occasionally 
 have a little abstruse disquisition ; but the most telling scene is 
 doubtless where the bread is distributed to the beggars, by Phillis. 
 Guy is here disguised as a palmer, and Phillis inquires if he knew 
 the great Earl, to which Guy answers, with a wink of the eye, that 
 
 10 
 
146 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 he and the Earl had often drank at the same crystal spring. But 
 Phillis is too dull, or too melancholy to trace her way through so 
 sorry a joke. 
 
 And now, just as the hour of completion of the vowed time of 
 his disguise, Guy takes to dying, and in that state he is found by 
 Rainhorn, the son who knows him not. He sends a token by the 
 young fellow to Phillis, who begins to suspect that the palmer who 
 used to be so particular in asking for " brown bread" at her gate, 
 must be the " Master Guy" of the days of sunny youth, short kir- 
 tles, and long love-making. Mother and son haste to the spot, but 
 the vital spark has fled. Phillis exclaims, with much composed 
 thought, not unnatural in a woman whose husband has been seven- 
 and-twenty years away from home, and whose memory is good : 
 " If it be he, he has a mould-wart underneath his ear ;" to which 
 the son as composedly remarks, " View him, good mother, satisfy 
 your mind." Thereupon the proper identification of the " party" 
 is established ; and the widow is preparing to administer, without 
 will annexed, when Rainhorn bids her banish sorrow, as the King 
 is coming. The son evidently thinks the honor of a living king 
 should drown sorrow for a deceased parent ; just as a Roman fam- 
 ily that can boast of a Pope in it, does not put on mourning even 
 when that Pope dies ; the having had him, being considered a joy 
 that no grief should diminish. 
 
 Athelstan is evidently a King of Cockayne, for he affably ex- 
 presses surprise at the old traveller's death, seeing, says his Majes- 
 ty, that " I had appointed for to meet Sir Guy ;" to which the son, 
 who has now succeeded to the estate, replies, in the spirit of an 
 heir who has been waiting long for an inheritance: — that the 
 death has happened, and can not now be helped. 
 
 But the most remarkable matter in this tragedy is that uttered 
 by Time, who plays prologue, epilogue, and interlude between the 
 acts. Whatever Charles may have thought of the piece, he was 
 doubtless well-pleased with Time, who addresses the audience in 
 verse, giving a political turn to the lesson on the stage. I dare 
 say the following lines were loudly applauded, if not by the king, 
 by the gallants, courtiers, and cavaliers generally : — 
 
 "In Holy Land abroad Guy's spirits roam, 
 And not in deans and chapters' lands at home. 
 
SIE GUY OF WARWICK. 147 
 
 His sacred fury menaceth that nation, 
 Which held Judea under sequestration. 
 He doth not strike at surplices and tippets, 
 To bring an olio in of sects and sippets ; 
 But deals his warlike and death-doing blows 
 Against his Saviour's and his sor'reign's foes." 
 
 How the Royalist throats must have roared applause, and war- 
 rantable too, at these genial lines ; and how must the churchmen 
 in the pit have stamped with delight when Time subsequently as- 
 sured them that Guy took all his Babylonian prisoners to Jeru- 
 salem, and had them probably christened by episcopally-ordained 
 ministers ! If the house did not ring with the cheers of the Church- 
 and-King audience there, why they were unworthy of the instruc- 
 tion filtered through legend and tragedy. 
 
 Such is the story of " Master Guy ;" a story whose incidents 
 have doubtless meaning in them, but which were never turned to 
 more practical purpose than when they were employed to support 
 a tottering altar and a fallen throne. Reader, let us drink to the 
 immortal memory of Master Gtjt ; and having seen what sort 
 of man he was whom the king delighted to honor, let us see what 
 honors were instituted by kings for other deserving men. 
 
148 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 GARTERIANA. 
 
 " Honor ! Your own worth before 
 Hath been sufficient preparation." — The Maid's Revenge. 
 
 A brief sketch of the history of the foundation of the Order of 
 the Garter will be found in another page. Confining myself here 
 to anecdotical detail, I will commence by observing, that in former 
 times, no Knight could be absent from two consecutive feasts of 
 the order, without being fined in a jewel, which he was to offer at 
 St. George's altar. The fine was to be doubled every year, until 
 he had mad^ atonement. Further, every knight was bound to wear 
 the Garter in public, wherever he might be, on pain of a mulct of 
 half a mark. Equally obligatory was it on the knight, in whatever 
 part of the world he was residing, or however he was engaged, to 
 wear the sanguine mantle of the order from the eve of St. George 
 till vesper-time on the morrow of the festival. Some of the chev- 
 aliers who were in distant lands must have caused as much sur- 
 prise by their costume, as a Blue-coat boy does, wandering in his 
 strangely-colored garb, in the streets of Paris. I need not allude 
 to the absurd consequence which would attend the enforcing of 
 this arrangement in our own days. Hunting is generally over be- 
 fore the eve of St. George's day, and therefore a robed Knight of 
 the Garter could never be seen taking a double fence, ditch and 
 rail, at the tail of the " Melton Mowbray." But even the sight of 
 half a dozen of them riding down Parliament street at the period 
 in question, would hardly be a stranger spectacle. A slight money 
 offering of a penny exempted any rather loose-principled knight 
 from attending divine service at St. George's Chapel when he was 
 in or near "Windsor. When a knight died, all his surviving com- 
 rades were put to the expense of causing a certain number of 
 masses to be said for his soul. The sovereign-lord of the order 
 
GARTERIANA. 149 
 
 had one thousand masses chanted in furtherance of his rescue from 
 purgatory. There was a graduated scale through the various 
 ranks till the knight-bachelor was come to. For him, only one 
 hundred masses were put up. This proves either that the knight's 
 soul was not so difficult of deliverance from what Prince Gorscha- 
 koff would call the " feu d'enfer," or that the King's was so heavily 
 pressed to the lowest depths of purgatory by its crimes, that it re- 
 quired a decupled effort before it could be rescued. 
 
 " Companionship," it may be observed, profited a knight in some 
 degree if, being knave as well as knight, he fell under the usual 
 sentence of being " drawn, hanged, and beheaded." In such case, 
 a Knight of the Garter only suffered decapitation, as Sir Simon 
 Burley in 1388. The amount of favor shown to the offending 
 knight did not admit of his being conscious of much gratitude to 
 him at whose hands it was received. It may be mentioned, that 
 it did not always follow that a nobleman elected to be knight wil- 
 lingly accepted the proffered Garter. The first who refused it, 
 after due election, in 1424, was the Duke of Burgundy. He 
 declined it with as much scorn as Uhland did the star of merit 
 offered to the poet by the present King of Bavaria. 
 
 In treating of stage knights, I shall be found to have placed at 
 their head Sir John Falstaff. The original of that character ac- 
 cording to some namely, Sir John Fastolf, claims some notice here, 
 as a Knight of the Garter who was no more the coward which he 
 was said to be, than Falstaff is the bloated buffoon which some 
 commentators take him for. Sir John Fastolf was elected Knight 
 of the Garter in 1426. Monstrelet says he was removed from 
 the order for running away, without striking a blow, at the battle 
 of Patay. Shakespeare's popular Sir John has nothing in com- 
 mon with this other Sir John, but we have Falstolf himself in 
 Henry VI. act iv. sc. 1, with Talbot, alluding to his vow, that 
 
 " When I did meet thee next, 
 To tear the Garter from thy craven's leg, 
 The which I have done, because unworthily 
 Thou wast installed in that high degree." 
 
 This sort of suspension or personal deprivation was never allowed 
 by the rules of the order, which enjoined the forms for degrading 
 a knight who was proved to have acted cowardly. The battle of 
 
150 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Patay was fought in 1429 ; and as there is abundant testimony 
 of Sir John having been in possession of the Garter and all its 
 honors long after that period ; and, further, that his tomb in Pul- 
 ham Mary, Norfolk, represented him in gilt armor, with his crest 
 and two escutcheons, with the cross of St. George within the order, 
 we may fairly conclude that if the charge was ever made, of which 
 there is no trace, it assuredly never was proven. 
 
 If there were some individuals who refused to accept the honor 
 at all, there were others who were afraid to do so without curious 
 inquiry. Thus, in the reign of Henry VI. we hear of the em- 
 bassador from Frederick III. Emperor of Germany (one Sir Her- 
 took von Clux), stating that his master wishes to know "what it 
 would stand him in, if he were to be admitted into the honorable 
 order ! " Cautious Austria ! 
 
 There are examples both of courtesy and sarcasm among the 
 Knights of the Garter. I may cite, for instance, the case of the 
 Duke of York, in the reign of Henry VI. a. d. 1453. The King 
 was too ill to preside at the Chapter ; the Duke of Buckingham 
 was his representative ; and the Duke of York, so little scrupu- 
 lous in most matters, excused himself from attending on tins oc- 
 casion, because, as he said, " the sovereign having for some time 
 been angry with him, he durst not attend, lest he should incur his 
 further displeasure, and thereby aggravate the illness under which 
 the King was suffering." When the same Duke came into power, 
 he gave the Garter to the most useful men of the York party, 
 beheading a few Lancastrian knights in order to make way for 
 them. At the Chapter held for the purpose of electing the York 
 aspirants, honest John de Foix, Earl of Kendal, declined to vote 
 at all. He alleged that he was unable to discern whether the can- 
 didates were " without reproach" or not, and he left the decision 
 to clearsighted people. The Earl was a Lancastrian, and he thus 
 evaded the disagreeable act of voting for personal and political 
 enemies. 
 
 But whatever the intensity of dislike one knight may have had 
 against another, there were occasions on which they went, hand 
 in hand, during the celebration of mass, to kiss that esteemable 
 relic, the heart of St. George. This relic had been brought to 
 England by the Emperor Sigismund. Anstis remarks, after al> 
 
GARTERIANA. 151 
 
 luding to the obstinacy of those who will not believe all that St. 
 Ambrose says touching the facts of St. George, his slaying of the 
 dragon, and his rescue of a royal virgin, that " whosoever is so 
 refractory as obstinately to condemn every part of this story, is not 
 to be bore with." He then adds : "this true martyr and excellent 
 and valued soldier of Christ, after many unspeakable torments in- 
 flicted on him by an impious tyrant, when he had bent his head, 
 and was just ready to give up the ghost, earnestly entreated Al- 
 mighty God, that whoever, in remembrance of him, and his 
 name, should devoutly ask anything, might be heard, a voice 
 instantly came from Heaven, signifying that that was granted 
 which he had requested. . . . While living, by prayer he 
 obtained that whoever should fly to him for his intercession, should 
 not pray nor cry out in vain. He ordered the trunk of his body, 
 which had origin from among infidels, to be sent to them, that 
 they whom he had not been able to serve, when living, might 
 receive benefit from him, when dead ; that those infidels who by 
 any misfortune had lost their senses, by coming to him or his 
 chapel, might be restored to soundness of mind and judgment. 
 His head and other members were to be carried, some one way 
 and some another. But his heart, the emblem of lively love, was 
 bequeathed wholly to Christians, for whom he had the most fervent 
 affection. Not to all them in general, though Christians, but to Eng- 
 lishmen alone ; and not to every part of England, but only to his 
 own Windsor, which on this account must have been more pleasing 
 to the sovereigns and all other the knights of this most illustrious 
 order. Thus his heart, together with a large portion of his skull, 
 is there kept with due honor and veneration. Sigismund, Em- 
 peror of Alemain, always august, being chosen in this honorable 
 order, presented this heart to the invincible Henry V., who gave 
 orders to have it preserved in that convenient place, where he had 
 already instituted for himself solemn exequies for ever, that the 
 regard he had for all others might be past dispute." This is very 
 far, indeed, from being logical, but the fact remains that during 
 the reign of Henry VI., the heart seems to have been regarded 
 with more than usual reverence by the knights of the two factions 
 which were rending England. Each hoped to win St. George 
 for a confederate. 
 
152 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 The chapters were not invariably held at Windsor, nor in such 
 solemn localities as a chapel. In 1445, Henry VI., held a chapter 
 at the Lion Inn in Brentford. In this hostelrie the King created 
 Sir Thomas Hastings and Sir Alonzo d'Almade, Knights of the 
 Garter. To the latter, who was also made Earl of Avranches, 
 in the best room of a Brentford inn, the monarch also presented 
 a gold cup. The whole party seems to have made a night of it in 
 the pleasant locality, and the new chevaliers were installed the 
 next morning — after which, probably, mulled sack went round in 
 the golden cup. 
 
 Shakespeare makes Richard III. swear by his George, his 
 Garter, and his Crown ; but the George and Collar were novelties 
 introduced by Henry VII. The latter King held one of the 
 most splendid chapters which ever assembled, at York, prefacing 
 the work there by riding with all the knights, in their robes, to 
 the morning mass of requiem, and following it up by similarly 
 riding to even-sung. This was more decent than Henry VI.'s 
 tavern chapter of the (Red) Lion, in Brentford. Henry VII. 
 was fond of the solemn splendor of installations, at which he 
 changed his costume like a versatile actor, was surrounded by 
 ladies as well as knights, and had Skelton, the poet, near to take 
 notes for songs and sonnets, descriptive of the occasion. A sover- 
 eign of the order, like Henry VII., so zealous to maintain its 
 splendor and efficiency, merited the gift which was conferred upon 
 him by the Cardinal of Rouen — of the bones of one of the legs 
 of St. George. The saint had many legs, but it is not said where 
 these bones were procured, and they who beheld them, at the 
 chapter held in St. Paul's Cathedral in 1505, probably little 
 troubled themselves as to whence the precious relics were derived. 
 Henry, in return, left an image of St. George, of one hundred 
 and forty ounces, adorned with masses of precious stones, to the 
 College of Windsor, " there to remain while the world shall endure, 
 to be set upon the high altar at all solemn feasts." Leg bones 
 and costly image would now be sought for in vain. The world 
 has outlived them, and suffers nothing by their loss. 
 
 It was the successor of Richmond, namely Henry VHI. who 
 granted to these knights what may be termed a sumptuary privi* 
 lege, that of being permitted to wear woollen cloth made out of 
 
GARTERIANA. 153 
 
 the realm. None but a knight, save the peers, dared don a coat 
 or mantle made of foreign cloth. In love of splendor, Henry was 
 equal to his predecessor, and perhaps never was a more brilliant 
 spectacle seen than on the 27th of May, 1519, when the King and 
 a glittering cortege rode from Richmond to "Windsor, and changed 
 steeds and drank a cup at the " Catherine's "Wheel," in Colnbrook, 
 by the way. The Queen and a galaxy of ladies met them in Eton, 
 and the usual solemnities were followed by a gorgeous banquet, 
 at which there were such meat and music as had scarcely ever 
 been so highly enjoyed at a festival before. The middle of the 
 hall was crowded with spectators, but at the close of the repast, 
 these were turned out, when " the King was served of his void, 
 the knights also, standing all along" — which must have been a 
 remarkably edifying exhibition. 
 
 Henry re-modelled the order, and framed the statutes by which 
 it is now chiefly governed. Among them was the one directing 
 that no person of mean birth should be elected, and this the King 
 himself very speedily broke, by electing Thomas Cromwell. The 
 latter returned thanks for the honor in the very humblest strain, 
 and while he seemed conscious that he was entirely unworthy of 
 the distinction, he appeared desirous to assure the sneering knights' 
 companions who had been compelled to give him their suffrages, 
 that ignoble as he was, he would imitate nobility as closely as pos- 
 sible. But there were men, from the period of the institution of 
 the order downward to Henry's time, who, if of higher birth than 
 Cromwell, were not of higher worth. Very many had forfeited 
 their dignity as knights by treasonable practices; and Henry 
 decreed that wherever these names occurred in the records, the 
 words " Voe Proditor !" — Out upon the traitor — should be written 
 against them in the margin. The text had thus a truly Tudor 
 comment. 
 
 Under the succeeding sovereign, Edward VI., a great portion 
 of the splendor of the religious ceremonies at the installation was 
 abolished. It was in this reign that Northumberland procured 
 the ejection of Lord Paget from the order, on the ground that the 
 meanness of his birth had always disqualified him, or as Edward 
 VI. says in his journal, " for divers his offences, and chiefly because 
 he was no gentleman of blood, neither of father-side nor mother- 
 
154 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 side." Lord Paget, however, was restored under Mary, and the 
 record of his degradation was removed from the register. 
 
 Under Mary, if there was some court servility there was also 
 some public spirit. "When the Queen created her husband Philip 
 a knight, an obsequious herald, out of compliment to the "joint- 
 sovereigns," took down the arms of England in the chapel at 
 Windsor, and was about to set up those of Spain. This, however, 
 was forbidden " by certain lords," and brave men they were, for 
 in such a display of English spirit there was peril of incurring 
 the ill-will of Mary, who was never weary of heaping favors on 
 the foreign King-consort, whom she would have made generalis- 
 simo of her forces if she had dared. It is a curious fact that 
 Philip was not ejected from the order, even when he had de- 
 spatched the Spanish Armada to devastate the dominions of the 
 sovereign. 
 
 In illustration of the fact that the Garter never left the leg of a 
 knight of the order, there are some lines by the Elizabethan poet 
 Peele, which are very apt to the occasion. Speaking of the Earl 
 of Bedford, Peele says — 
 
 — " Dead is Bedford ! virtuous and renowned 
 Eor arms, for honor, and religious love ; 
 And yet alive his name in Fame's records, 
 That held his Garter dear, and wore it well. 
 Some worthy wight but blazon his deserts : 
 Only a tale I thought on by the way, 
 As I observed his honorable name. 
 I heard it was his chance, o'erta'en with sleep, 
 To take a nap near to a farmer's lodge. 
 Trusted a little with himself belike, 
 This aged earl in his apparel plain, 
 "Wrapt in his russet gown, lay down to rest, 
 His badge of honor buckled to his leg. 
 Bare and naked. There came a pilfering swad 
 And would have preyed upon this ornament 
 Essayed t' unbuckle it, thinking bim asleep. 
 ♦ The noble gentleman, feeling what he meant — 
 ' Hold, foolish lad,' quoth he, ' a better prey : 
 ' This Garter is not fit for ev'ry leg, 
 ' And I account it better than my purse. 
 The varlet ran away, the earl awaked. 
 And told his friends, and smiling said withal, 
 
GARTERIANA. 155 
 
 1 'A would not, had 'a understood the French 
 
 ' Writ on my Garter, dared t' have stol'n the same.' 
 
 This tale I thought upon, told me for truth, 
 
 The rather for it praised the Posy, 
 
 Right grave and honorable, that importeth much — 
 
 'Evil be to him/ it saith, 'that evil thinks.' " 
 
 Elizabeth was distinguished for loving to hold newly-chosen 
 knights in suspense, before she ratified their election by her ap- 
 proval. The anniversary banquets too fell into disuse during her 
 reign, and she introduced the most unworthy knight that had ever 
 stood upon the record of the order. This was Charles IX. of 
 France. On the other hand she sent the Garter to Henri Quatre. 
 He was the last French monarch who was a companion of the 
 order, till the reign of Louis XVIII. On the day the latter came 
 up from Hartwell to Stanmore, on his way to France, at the period 
 of the first restoration, the Prince Regent invested him with 
 the brilliant insignia at Carlton House. It was on this occasion 
 Louis XVIII. observed that he was the first King of France who 
 had worn the garter since the period of Henri Quatre. Louis had 
 erased his own name from the Golden Book of Nobility of Venice, 
 when he heard that the name of Bonaparte had been inserted 
 therein. He, perhaps, would have declined receiving the Garter, 
 if he could have foreseen that the royal niece of the Prince Re- 
 gent would, in after years, confer the order on the imperial nephew 
 of Napoleon. 
 
 The period of James is marked by some pretty quarrels among 
 the officials. Thus at the installation of Prince Henry, there was 
 a feast which was well nigh turned into a fray. At the very be- 
 ginning of it, the prebends and heralds fell to loggerheads on the 
 delicate question of precedency. The alms-knights mingled in the 
 quarrel by siding with the prebends, and claiming the next degree 
 of precedency before the heralds. Reference was made to the 
 Earls of Nottingham and Worcester. The referees adjudged the 
 heralds to have right of precedency before the prebends. There- 
 upon the proud prebends, oblivious of Christian humility, refused 
 to go to church at the tail of the heralds. The latter went in ex- 
 ultingly without them, and the prebends would not enter until a 
 long time had elapsed, so that it could not be said they followed 
 
156 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 the gentlemen of the tabard. The delicate question was again 
 angrily discussed, and at length referred to the whole body of 
 knights. The noble fraternity, after grave deliberation, finally 
 determined that on the next day of St. George, being Sunday, in 
 the procession to the church, the alms-knights should go first, then 
 the pursuivants of arms, then the prebends (many of whom were 
 doctors of divinity), and finally the heralds. The latter were cun- 
 ning rogues, and no inconsiderable authority in matters of prece- 
 dency ; and they immediately declared that the knights had decreed 
 to them the better place, inasmuch as that in most processions the 
 principal personages did not walk first. 
 
 Of the knights of this reign, Grave Maurice, Prince of Orange, 
 and Frederick the (Goody) Palsgrave of the Rhine, were among 
 the most celebrated. They were installed in 1613, the Prince by 
 proxy, and the Palsgrave in person. A young and graceful 
 Count Ludovic of Nassau, was chosen at the last moment, to rep- 
 resent the Prince, whose appointed representative, Count Henry, 
 was detained in Holland by adverse winds. " The feast," says an 
 eye-witness, " was in the Great Hall, where the king dined at the 
 upper table alone, served in state by the Lord Gerard as Sewer, 
 the Lord Morris as Cupbearer, the Lord Compton as Carver ; all 
 that were of the order, at a long cross table across the hall. The 
 Prince by himself alone, and the Palatine a little distance from 
 him. But the Count Nassau was ranged over-against my Lord 
 Admiral, and so took place of all after the Sovereign Princes, not 
 without a little muttering of our Lords, who would have had him 
 ranged according to seniority, if the king had not overruled it by 
 prerogative." 
 
 Wilson, in his history of James I., narrates a curious anec- 
 dote respecting this Grave Maurice and the ribbon of the 
 order. " Prince Maurice took it as a great honor to be admit- 
 ted into the Fraternity of that Order, and wore it constantly ; till 
 afterward, some villains at the Hague, that met the reward of their 
 demerit (one of them, a Frenchman, being groom of the Prince's 
 chamber) robbed a jeweller of Amsterdam that, brought jewels to 
 the Prince. This groom, tempting him into his chamber, to see 
 some jewels, there, with his confederates, strangled the man with 
 one of the Prince's Blue Ribbons ; which being afterward discov- 
 
GARTERIANA. 157 
 
 ered, the Prince would never suffer so fatal an instrument to come 
 about his neck." 
 
 James, by raising his favorite Buckingham, then only Sir George 
 Villiers, to the degree of Knight of the Garter, was considered tc 
 have as much outraged the order as Henry VIII. had done by 
 investing Cromwell with the insignia. Chamberlain, in a letter to 
 Sir Dudley Carleton, says, " The King went away the next day 
 after St. George's Feast, toward Newmarket and Thetford, the 
 Earl of Rutland and Sir George Villiers being that morning 
 elected into the order of the Garter, which seemed at first a strange 
 choice, in regard that the wife of the former is an open and known 
 recusant, and he is said to have many dangerous people about him ; 
 and the latter is so lately come into the sight of the world, and 
 withal it is doubted that he had not sufficient likelihood to maintain 
 the dignity of the place, according to express articles of the order. 
 But to take away that scruple, the King hath bestowed upon him 
 the Lord Gray's lands, and means, they say, to mend his grant 
 with much more, not far distant, in the present possession of the 
 Earl of Somerset, if he do cadere causa and sink in the business 
 now in hand." The last passage alludes to the murder of Over- 
 bury. 
 
 The going down to Windsor was at this time a pompous spec- 
 tacle. The riding thither of the Knights Elect is thus spoken of 
 by a contemporary: "On Monday," (St. George's day, 1615), 
 " our Knights of the Garter, Lord Fenton and Lord Knollys, ride 
 to Windsor, with great preparation to re-vie one with another who 
 shall make the best show. Though I am of opinion the latter 
 will carry it by many degrees, by reason of the alliance with the 
 houses of the Howards, Somerset, Salisbury, and Dorset, with 
 many other great, families that will bring him their friends, and 
 most part of the pensioners. Yet most are persuaded the other 
 will bear away the bell, as having the best part of the court, all 
 the bed-chamber, all the prince's servants and followers, with a 
 hundred of the Guard, that have new rich coats made on purpose, 
 besides Sir George Villiers (the favorite), and Mr. Secretary — 
 whose presence had been better forborne, in my judgment, for 
 many reasons — but that every man abound in his own sense." 
 Jam^s endeavored to suppress, in some measure, the expensive 
 
158 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 ride of the Knights Elect to "Windsor, but only with partial suc- 
 cess. His attempted reform, too, had a selfish aspect ; he tried to 
 make it profitable to himself. He prohibited the giving of livery 
 coats, " for saving charge and avoiding emulation," and at the same 
 time ordered that all existing as well as future companions should 
 present a piece of plate of the value of twenty pounds sterling at 
 least for the use of the altar in St. George's Chapel. 
 
 Charles I. held chapters in more places in England than any 
 other king — now at York, now at Nottingham, now at Oxford, 
 and in other localities. These chapters were sometimes attended 
 by as few as four knights, and for the most part they were shorn 
 of much of the ancient ceremony. He held some brilliant chap- 
 ters at Windsor, nevertheless. At one of them, the election of 
 the Earl of Northumberland inspired a bard, whose song I subjoin 
 because it is illustrative of several incidents which are far from 
 lacking interest. 
 
 " A brief description of the triumphant show made by the Eight 
 Honorable Aulgernon Percie Earl of Northumberland, at his in- 
 stallation and initiation into the princely fraternity of the Garter, 
 on the 13th of May, 1635." 
 
 To the tune of " Quell the Pride." 
 
 " You noble buds of Britain, 
 
 That spring from honor's tree, 
 Who love to hear of high designs, 
 
 Attend awhile to me. 
 And I'll (in brief) discover what 
 Fame bids me take in hand — 
 To blaze 
 The praise 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
 " The order of the Garter, 
 
 Ere since third Edward reigned 
 Unto the realm of England hath 
 
 A matchless honor gained. 
 
 The world hath no society, 
 
 Like to this princely band, 
 
 To raise 
 
 The praise 
 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
GARTERIANA. 159 
 
 ( The honor of his pedigree 
 
 Doth claim a high regard, 
 And many of his ancestors 
 
 For fame thought nothing hard. 
 
 And he, through noble qualities, 
 
 Which are exactly scanned, 
 
 Doth raise 
 
 The praise 
 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
 'Against the clay appointed, 
 
 His lordship did prepare ; 
 
 To publish his magnificence 
 
 No charges he did spare. 
 
 The like within man's memory 
 
 Was never twice in hand 
 
 To raise 
 
 The praise 
 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
 ' Upon that day it seemed 
 All Brittany did strive, 
 And did their best to honor him 
 With all they could contrive. 
 For all our high nobility 
 Joined in a mutual land 
 To blaze 
 The praise 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
 ' The common eyes were dazzled 
 
 With wonder to behold 
 The lustre of apparel rich, 
 
 All silver, pearl, and gold, 
 
 Which on brave coursers mounted, 
 
 Did glisten through the Strand, 
 
 To blaze 
 
 The praise 
 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
 ' But ere that I proceed 
 
 This progress to report, 
 I should have mentioned the feast 
 
 Made at Salisbury Court. 
 Almost five hundred dishes 
 
160 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Did on the table stand, 
 
 To raise 
 
 The praise 
 Of great Northumberland." 
 
 The Second Part, to tJie same tune. 
 
 ' The mightiest prince or monarch 
 
 That in the world doth reign, 
 At such a sumptuous banquet might 
 
 Have dined without disdain, 
 
 Where sack, like conduit water, 
 
 "Was free ever at command, 
 
 To blaze 
 
 The praise 
 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
 : The famous Fleet-street conduit, 
 
 Renowned so long ago, 
 Did not neglect to express what love 
 
 She to my lord did owe. 
 For like an old proud woman 
 The painted face doth stand 
 To blaze 
 The praise 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
 : A number of hrave gallants, 
 
 Some knights and some esquires, 
 Attended at this triumph great, 
 
 Clad in complete attires. 
 The silver half-moon gloriously 
 Upon their sleeves doth stand, 
 To blaze 
 The praise 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
 ' All these on stately horses, 
 That ill endured the bit, 
 Were mounted in magnific cost, 
 
 As to the time was fit. 
 Their feathers white and red did show, 
 Like to a martial band, 
 To blaze 
 The praise 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
GARTER! ANA. 161 
 
 " The noble earls and viscounts, 
 And barons, rode in state : 
 This great and high solemnity 
 
 All did congratulate. 
 To honor brave Earl Percy 
 Each put a helping hand 
 To blaze 
 The praise 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
 " King Charles, our royal sovereign. 
 And his renowned Mary, 
 With Britain's hope, their progeny, 
 
 All lovingly did tarry 
 At noble Viscount Wimbleton's, 
 r the fairest part o' th' Strand, 
 To blaze 
 The prai&e 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
 u To famous Windsor Castle, 
 With all his gallant train, 
 Earl Pearcy went that afternoon 
 
 His honor to obtain. 
 And there he was installed 
 One of St. George's band, 
 To blaze 
 The praise 
 Of great Northumberland. 
 
 * Long may he live in honor, 
 
 In plenty and in peace ; 
 For him, and all his noble friends. 
 
 To pray I'll never cease. 
 This ditty (which I now will end) 
 Was only ta'en in hand 
 To blaze 
 The praise 
 Of great Northumberland." 
 
 This illustrative ballad bears the initials "M. P.'* These, 
 probably, do not imply either a member of Parliament, or of the 
 house of Percy. Beneath the initials we have the legend, " Printed 
 at London, for Francis Coules, and are" (verses subaudiuntur) " to 
 be sold at his shop in the Old Bayley." There are three wood- 
 cuts to illustrate the text, The first represents the Earl on horse- 
 
 11 
 
162 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 back ; both peer and charger are very heavily caparisoned, and 
 the steed looks as intelligent as the peer. In front of this stately, 
 solid, and leisurely pacing couple, is a mounted serving-man, 
 armed with a stick, and riding full gallop at nobody. The illustra- 
 tion to the second part represents the Earl returning from Wind- 
 sor in a carriage, which looks very much like the Araba in the 
 Turkish Exhibition. The new Knight wears his hat, cloak, collar 
 and star ; his figure, broad-set to the doorway, bears no distant 
 resemblance to the knave of clubs, and his aristocratic self-posses- 
 sion and serenity are remarkable, considering the bumping he is 
 getting, as implied by the Avheels of his chariot being several 
 inches off the ground. The pace of the steeds, two and twohalves 
 of whom are visible, is not, however, very great. They are hardly 
 out of a walk. But perhaps the bareheaded coachman and the 
 as bareheaded groom have just pulled them up, to allow the run- 
 ning footmen to reach the carriage. Two of these are seen near 
 the rear of the vehicle, running like the brace of mythological 
 personages in Ovid, who ran the celebrated match in which the 
 apples figured so largely. The tardy footmen have just come in 
 sight of their lord, who does not allow his serenity to be disturbed 
 by chiding them. The Percy wears as stupid an air as his ser- 
 vants, and the only sign of intelligence anywhere in the group is 
 to be found in the off-side wheeler, whose head is turned back, 
 with a sneering cast in the face, as if he were ridiculing the idea of 
 the whole show, and was possessed with the conviction that he was 
 drawing as foolish a beast as himself. 
 
 The Earl appears to have ridden eastward, in the direction 
 pointed by his own lion's tale, before he drove down to Windsor. 
 The show seems to have interested all ranks between the Crown 
 and the Conduit in Fleet street. Where Viscount Wimbledon's 
 house was, " in the fairest part of the Strand," I can not conjecture, 
 and as I can not find information on this point in Mr. Peter Cun- 
 ningham's " Hand-Book of London," I conclude that the site is not 
 known. 
 
 In connection with Charles I. and his Garter, I will here cite a 
 passage from the third volume of Mr. Macaulay's " History of 
 England," page 165. " Louvois hated Lauzun. Lauzun was a 
 favorite at St. Germains. He wore the Garter, a badge of honor 
 
GARTERIANA. 163 
 
 which has very seldom been conferred on aliens who were not 
 sovereign princes. It was believed, indeed, in the French court, 
 that in order to distinguish him from the other knights of the most 
 illustrious of European orders, he had been decorated with that 
 very George which Charles I. had, on the scaffold, put into the 
 hands of Juxon." Lauzun, I shall have to notice under the head 
 of foreign knights. I revert here to the George won by Charles 
 and given to Lauzun. It was a very extraordinary jewel, curiously 
 cut in an onyx, set about with twenty-one large table diamonds, in 
 the fashion of a garter. On the under side of the George was the 
 portrait of Henrietta Maria, " rarely well limned," says Ashmole, 
 '• and set in a case of gold, the lid neatly enamelled with gold- 
 smith's work, and surrounded with another Garter, adorned with 
 a like number of equal-sized diamonds, as was the foresaid." The 
 onyx George of Charles I. was in the possession of the late Duke 
 of Wellington, and is the property of the present Duke. 
 
 There is something quite as curious touching the history of the 
 Garter worn by Charles I., as what Mr. Macaulay tells concern- 
 ing the George. The diamonds upon it, forming the motto, were 
 upward of four hundred in number. On the day of the execution, 
 this valuable ornament fell into the hands of one of Cromwell's 
 captains of cavalry, named Pearson. After one exchange of 
 hands, it was sold to John Ireton, sometime Lord-Mayor of Lon- 
 don, for two hundred and five pounds. At the Restoration, a 
 commission was appointed to look after the scattered royal prop- 
 erty generally ; and the commissioners not only recovered some 
 pictures belonging to Charles, from Mrs. Cromwell, who had placed 
 them in charge of a tradesman in Thames street, but they discov- 
 ered that Ireton held the Garter, and they summoned him to de- 
 liver it up accordingly. It has been said that the commissioners 
 offered him the value of the jewel if he would surrender it. This 
 is not the case. The report had been founded on a misapprehen- 
 sion of terms. Ireton did not deny that he possessed the Garter 
 by purchase, whereupon " composition was offered him, according 
 to the direction of the Commission, as in all other like cases where 
 anything could not be had in kind." That is, he was ordered to 
 surrender the jewel, or if this had been destroyed, its value, or 
 some compensation in lieu thereof. Ireton refused the terms alto- 
 
164 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS 
 
 gether. The King, Charles II., thereupon sued him in the Court 
 of King's Bench, where the royal plaintiff obtained a verdict for 
 two hundred and five pounds, and ten pounds costs of suit. " 
 
 In February, 1652, the Parliament abolished all titles and hon- 
 ors conferred by Charles I. since the 4th of January, two years 
 previously. This was done on the ground that the late King had 
 conferred such titles and honors, in order to promote his wicked 
 and treacherous designs against the parliament and people of En- 
 gland. A fine of one hundred pounds was decreed against every 
 offender, whenever he employed the abolished title, with the ex- 
 ception of a knight, who was let off at the cheaper rate of forty 
 pounds. Any one convicted of addressing a person by any of the 
 titles thus done away with, was liable to a fine of ten shillings. 
 The Parliament treated with silent contempt the titles and orders 
 of knighthood conferred by Charles I. As monarchy was defunct, 
 these adjuncts of monarchy were considered as defunct also. The 
 Protector did not create a single Knight of the Garter, nor of the 
 Bath. "These orders," says Nicolas, "were never formally abol- 
 ished, but they were probably considered so inseparably united to 
 the person, name, and office of a king, as to render it impossible 
 for any other authority to create them." Cromwell, however, made 
 one peer, Howard, Viscount Howard of Morpeth, ten baronets and 
 knights, and conferred certain degrees of precedency. It was sel- 
 dom that he named an unworthy person, considering the latter in 
 the Protector's own point of view, but the Restoration was no 
 sooner an accomplished fact, when to ridicule one of Oliver's 
 knights was a matter of course with the hilarious dramatic poets. 
 On this subject something will be found under the head of " Stage 
 Knights." Meanwhile, although there is nothing to record touch- 
 ing Knights of the Garter, under the Commonwealth, we may no- 
 tice an incident showing that Garter King-at-arms was not alto- 
 gether idle. This incident will be sufficiently explained by the 
 following extract from the third volume of Mr. Macaulay's " His- 
 tory of England." The author is speaking of the regicide Ludlow, 
 who, since the Restoration, had been living in exile at Geneva. 
 " The Revolution opened a new prospect to him. The right of 
 the people to resist oppression, a right which, during many years, 
 no man could assert without exposing himself to ecclesiastical an- 
 
GARTERIANA. 165 
 
 athenias and to civil penalties, had been solemnly recognised by 
 the Estates of the realm, and had been proclaimed by Garter 
 King-at-arrns, on the very spot where the memorable scaffold had 
 been set up." 
 
 Charles II. did not wait for the Restoration in order to make or 
 unmake knights. He did not indeed hold chapters, but at St. 
 Germains, in Jersey, and other localities, he unknighted knights 
 who had forgotten their allegiance in the " late horrid rebellion," 
 as he emphatically calls the Parliamentary and Cromwellian 
 periods, and authorized other individuals to wear the insignia, 
 while he exhorted them to wait patiently and hopefully for their 
 installations at Windsor. At St. Germains, he gave the Garter to 
 his favorite Buckingham ; and from Jersey he sent it to two far 
 better men — Montrose, and Stanley, Earl of Derby. The worst 
 enemies of these men could not deny their chivalrous qualities. 
 Montrose on the scaffold, when they hung (in derision) from his 
 neck the book in which were recorded his many brave deeds, very 
 aptly said that he wore the record of his courage with as much 
 pride as he ever wore the Garter. Stanley's chivalry was never 
 more remarkable than in the skirmish previous to Worcester, when 
 in the hot affray, he received seven shots in his breast-plate, thir- 
 teen cuts on his beaver, five or six wounds on his arms and shoul- 
 ders, and had two horses killed under him. When he was about 
 to die, he returned the Garter, by the hands of a faithful servant, 
 to the king, " in all humility and gratitude," as he remarked, " spot- 
 less and free from any stain, as he received it, according to the 
 honorable example of my ancestors." 
 
 Charles made knights of the Garter of General Monk and Ad- 
 miral Montague. The chapter for election was held in the Abbey 
 of St. Augustine's at Canterbury. It was the first convenient place 
 which the king could find for such a purpose after landing. " They 
 were the only two," says Pepys, " for many years who had the 
 Garter given them before they had honor of earldom, or the like, 
 excepting only the Duke of Buckingham, who was only Sir George 
 Villiers when he was made a knight of the Garter." The honor 
 was offered to Clarendon, but declined as above his deserts, and 
 likely to create him enemies. James, Duke of York, however, 
 angrily attributed Clarendon's objection to being elected to the 
 
166 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Garter to the fact that James himself had asked it for him, and 
 that the Chancellor was foolishly unwilling to accept any honor 
 that was to be gained by the Duke's mediation. 
 
 Before proceeding to the next reign, let me remark that the 
 George and Garter of Charles II. had as many adventures or mis- 
 adventures as those of his father. In the fight at Worcester his 
 collar and garter became the booty of Cromwell, who despatched 
 a messenger with them to the Parliament, as a sign and trophy of 
 victory. The king's lesser George, set with diamonds, was pre- 
 served by Colonel Blague. It passed through several hands with 
 much risk. It at length fell again into the hands of the Colonel 
 when he was a prisoner in the Tower. Blague, " considering it 
 had already passed so many clangers, was persuaded it could yet 
 secure one hazardous attempt of his own." The enthusiastic roy- 
 alist looked upon it as a talisman that would rescue him from cap- 
 tivity. Bight or wrong in his sentiment, the result was favorable. 
 He succeeded in making his escape, and had the gratification of 
 restoring the George to his sovereign. 
 
 The short reign of James II. offers nothing worthy of the notice 
 of the general reader with respect to this decoration; and the 
 same may be said of the longer reign of William III. The little 
 interest in the history of the order under Queen Anne, is in con- 
 nection with her foreign nominations, of which due notice will be 
 found in the succeeding section. Small, too, is the interest connect- 
 ed with these matters in the reign of George I., saving, indeed, that 
 under him we find the last instance of the degradation of a knight 
 of the garter, in the person of James, Duke of Ormund, who had 
 been attainted of high treason. His degradation took place on the 
 12th July, 1716. The elections were numerous during this reign. 
 The only one that seems to demand particular notice is that of 
 Sir Robert Walpole, First Lord of the Treasury. He gave up 
 the Bath on receiving the Garter in 1726, and he was the only 
 commoner who had received the distinction since Sir George Monk 
 and Sir Edward Montague were created, sixty-six years previously. 
 
 The first circumstance worthy of record under George II. is, 
 that the color of the garter and ribbon was changed from light 
 blue to dark, or " Garter-blue," as it is called. This was done in 
 order to distinguish the companions made by Brunswick from 
 
GARTERIANA. 167 
 
 those assumed to be fraudulently created by the Pretender Stuart. 
 Another change was effected, but much less felicitously. What 
 with religious, social, and political revolution, it was found that the 
 knights were swearing to statutes which they could not observe. 
 Their consciences were disturbed thereat — at least they said so; 
 but their sovereign set them at ease by enacting that in future all 
 knights should promise to break no statutes, except on dispensation 
 from the sovereign ! This left the matter exactly where it had 
 been previously. 
 
 The first circumstance worthy of attention in the reign of 
 George III., was that of the election of Earl Gower, president 
 of the council, in 1771. The sharp eye of Junius discovered that 
 the election was a farce, for in place of the sovereign and at least 
 six knights being present, as the statutes required, there were only 
 four knights present, the Dukes of Gloucester, Newcastle, Nor- 
 thumberland, and the Earl of Hertford. The first duke too was 
 there against his will. He had, says Junius, " entreated, begged, 
 and implored," to be excused from attending that chapter — but all 
 in vain. The new knight seems to have been illegally elected, 
 and as illegally installed. The only disagreeable result was to the 
 poor knights of Windsor. People interested in the subject had 
 made remarks, and while the illegal election of the president of 
 the coimcil was most properly put before the King, representation 
 was made to him that the poor knights had been wickedly contra- 
 vening their statutes, for a very long period. They had for years 
 been permitted to reside with their families wherever they chose 
 to fix their residence. This was pronounced irregular, and George 
 IH., so lax with regard to Lord Gower, was very strict with re- 
 spect to these poor knights. They were all commanded to reside 
 in their apartments attached to Windsor Castle, and there keep 
 up the poor dignity of their noble order, by going to church twice 
 every day in full uniform. There were some of them at that 
 period who would as soon have gone out twice a day to meet the 
 dragon. 
 
 The order of the Garter was certainly ill-used by this sovereign. 
 In order to admit all his sons, he abolished the statute of Edward 
 (who had as many sons as George had when he made the absurd 
 innovation, but who did not care to make knights of them because 
 
168 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 they were his sons), confining the number of companions to 
 twenty-five. Henceforward, the sovereign's sons were to reckon 
 only as over and above that number. As if this was not suffi- 
 ciently absurd, the king subsequently decreed eligibility of election 
 to an indefinite number of persons, provided only that they could 
 trace their descent from King George II. ! 
 
 No Companion so well deserved the honor conferred upon him 
 as he who was the most illustrious of the English knights created 
 during the sway of the successor of George III., as Regent; 
 namely, the late Duke of Wellington. Mr. Macaulay, when de- 
 tailing the services and honors conferred on Schomberg, has a pas- 
 sage in which he brings the names of these two warriors, dukes, 
 and knights of the Garter, together. " The House of Commons 
 had, with general approbation, compensated the losses of Schom- 
 berg, and rewarded his services by a grant of a hundred thousand 
 pounds. Before he set out for Ireland, he requested permission 
 to express his gratitude for this magnificent present. A chair was 
 set for him within the bar. He took his seat there with the mace 
 at his right hand, rose, and in a few graceful words returned his 
 thanks and took his leave. The Speaker replied that the Com- 
 mons could never forget the obligation under which they already 
 lay to his Grace, that they saw him with pleasure at the head of 
 an English army, that they felt entire confidence in his zeal and 
 ability, and that at whatever distance he might be he would always 
 be, in a peculiar manner, an object of their care. The precedent 
 set on this interesting occasion was followed with the utmost mi- 
 nuteness, a hundred and twenty-five years later, on an occasion 
 more interesting still. Exactly on the same spot, on which, in 
 July, 1689, Schomberg had acknowledged the liberality of the 
 nation, a chair was set in July, 1814, for a still more illustrious 
 warrior, who came to return thanks for a still more splendid mark 
 of public gratitude." 
 
 There is nothing calling for particular notice in the history of 
 the Order since the election of the last-named knight. Not one 
 on whose shoulders has been placed "the robe of heavenly color," 
 earned so hardly and so well the honor of companionship. This 
 honor, however, costs every knight who submits to the demand, 
 not less than one hundred and eight pounds sterling, in fees. It 
 
GARTERIANA. 169 
 
 is, in itself, a heavy fine inflicted on those who render extraordi- 
 nary service to the country, and to whom are presented the order 
 of the Garter, and an order from the Garter King-at-arms to pay 
 something more than a hundred guineas in return. The fine, 
 however, is generally paid with alacrity ; for, though the non-pay- 
 ment does not unmake a knight, it has the effect of keeping his 
 name from the register. 
 
 I have already observed tKat Mr. Macaulay, in his recently- 
 published History, has asserted that very few foreigners, except 
 they were sovereign princes, were ever admitted into the compan- 
 ionship of the Garter. Let us, then, look over the roll of illustri- 
 ous aliens, and see how far this assertion is correct. 
 
170 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER. 
 
 There is some error in Mr. Macaulay's statement, which, as a 
 matter of history, may be worth correcting. So far from there 
 having been few aliens, except sovereign princes, admitted into 
 the order, the fact, save in recent times, is exactly the reverse. 
 The order contemplated the admission of foreigners, from the 
 very day of its foundation. On that day, three foreigners were 
 admitted, none of whom was a sovereign prince. Not one of the 
 foreign sovereigns with whom Edward was in alliance, nor any of 
 the royal relatives of the Queen, were among the original com- 
 panions. The aliens, who were not sovereign princes, were the 
 Captal de Buch, a distinguished Gascon nobleman, and two ban- 
 nerets or knights, who with the other original companions had 
 served in the expeditions sent by Edward against France. 
 
 Again, under Richard H., among the most famous alien gentle- 
 men created knights of the Garter, were the Gascon soldier Du 
 Preissne ; Soldan de la Tour, Lord of much land in Xaintonge ; 
 the Dutch Count William of Ostervant, who made a favor of ac- 
 cepting the honorable badge ; the Duke of Bavaria (not yet Em- 
 peror), and Albert, Duke of Holland, who was hardly a sovereign 
 prince, but who, nevertheless, may be accounted as such, seeing 
 that, in a small way indeed, more like a baron than a monarch, he 
 exercised some sovereign rights. The Duke of Britanny may, 
 with more justice, be included in the list of sovereign dukes who 
 were members of the order. Under Henry IV., neither alien 
 noble nor foreign prince appears to have been elected, but under 
 his successor, fifth of the name, Eric X., King of Denmark, and 
 John I., King of Portugal, were created companions. They were 
 the first kings regnant admitted to the order. Some doubt exists 
 as to the date of their admission, but none as to their having been 
 
FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER. 171 
 
 knights' companions. Dabrichecourt is the name of a gentleman 
 lucky enough to have been also elected during this reign, but I do 
 not know if he were of foreign birth or foreign only by descent. 
 The number of the fraternity became complete in this reign, by 
 the election of the Emperor Sigismund. Under Henry V., the 
 foreign sovereign princes, members of the order, were unquestion- 
 ably more numerous than the mere alien ge"htlemen ; but reckon- 
 ing from the foundation, there had been a greater number of for- 
 eign knights not of sovereign quality than of those who were. 
 The sovereign princes did not seem to care so much for the honor 
 as private gentlemen in foreign lands. Thus the German, Sir 
 Hartook von Clux, accepted the honor with alacrity, but the King 
 of Denmark allowed five years to pass before he intimated that he 
 cheerfully or resignedly tendered his acceptance. At the first an- 
 niversary festival of the Order, held under Henry VI., as many 
 robes of the order were made for alien knights not sovereign 
 princes, as for gartered monarchs of foreign birth. The foreign 
 princes had so little appreciated the honor of election, that when 
 the Sovereign Duke of Burgundy was proposed, under Henry VI., 
 the knights would not go to election until that potentate had de- 
 clared whether he would accept the honor. His potentiality 
 declared very distinctly that he would not ; and he is the first 
 sovereign prince who positively refused to become a knight of the 
 Garter ! In the same reign Edward, King of Portugal, was elected 
 in the place of his father, John : — this is one of the few instances 
 in which the honor has passed from father to son. The Duke of 
 Coimbra, also elected in this reign, was of a foreign princely house, 
 but he was not a sovereign prince. He may reckon with the 
 alien knights generally. The Duke of Austria too, Albert, was 
 elected before he came to a kingly and to an imperial throne ; and 
 against these princes I may place the name of Gaston de Foix, 
 whom Henry V. had made Earl of Longueville, as that of a sim- 
 ple alien knight of good estate and knightly privileges. One or 
 two scions of royal houses were elected, as was Alphonso, King 
 of Aragon. But there is strong reason for believing that Alphonso 
 declined the honor. There is some uncertainty as to the period 
 of the election of Frederick III., that economical Emperor of 
 Austria, who begged to know what the expenses would amount to, 
 
172 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 before he would " accept the order." All the garters not home- 
 distributed, did not go to deck the legs of foreign sovereign princes. 
 Toward the close of the reign we find the Vicomte de Chastillion 
 elected, and also D'Ahnada, the Portuguese knight of whose jolly 
 installation at the Lion in Brentford, I have already spoken. An 
 Aragonese gentleman, Francis de Surienne, was another alien 
 knight of simply noble quality ; he was elected in the King's bed- 
 chamber at Westminster ; and the alien knights would more than 
 balance the foreign sovereign princes, even if we throw in Casimir, 
 King of Poland, who was added to the confraternity under the 
 royal Lancastrian. 
 
 The first foreigner whom Edward IV. raised to companionship 
 in the order, was not a prince, but a private gentleman named 
 Gaillard Duras or Durefort. The honor was conferred in ac- 
 knowledgment of services rendered to the King, in France ; and 
 the new knight was very speedily deprived of it, for traitorously 
 transferring his services to the King of France. Of the foreign 
 monarchs who are said to have been elected companions, during 
 this reign — namely, the Kings of Spain and Portugal — there is 
 much doubt whether the favor was conferred at all. The Dukes 
 of Ferrara and Milan were created knights, and these may be 
 reckoned among ducal sovereigns, although less than kings ; and let 
 me add that, if the Kings of .Spain and Portugal were elected, the 
 elections became void, because these monarchs failed to send 
 proxies to take possession of their stalls. Young Edward V. 
 presided at no election, and his uncle and successor, Richard III., 
 received no foreign prince into the order. At the installation, 
 however, of the short-lived son of Richard, that sovereign created 
 Geoffrey de Sasiola, embassador from the Queen of Spain, a knight, 
 by giving him three blows on the shoulders with a sword, and by 
 investing him with a gold collar. 
 
 Henry VII. was not liberal toward foreigners with the many 
 garters which fell at his disposal, after Bosworth, and during his 
 reign. He appears to have exchanged with Maximilian, the Gar- 
 ter for the Golden Fleece, and to have conferred the same decora- 
 tion on one or two heirs to foreign thrones, who were not sover- 
 eign ( princes when elected. It was not often that these princes 
 were installed in person. Such installation, however, did occasion- 
 
FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER. 173 
 
 ally happen ; and never was one more singular in its origin and 
 circumstances, than that of Philip, Archduke of Austria. Philip 
 had resolved to lay claim to the throne of Spain by right of his 
 wile Joan, daughter of Ferdinand of Castile and Aragon. He 
 was on his way to Spain, when foul winds and a tempestuous sea 
 drove him into \Yeymouth. Henry invited him to Windsor, 
 treated him with great hospitality, and installed him Knight of the 
 Garter. Philip " took the oath to observe the statutes, without 
 any other qualification than that he might not be obliged to attend 
 personally at the chapters, or to wear the collar, except at his own 
 pleasure. In placing the collar round his neck, and in conducting 
 him to his stall, Henry addressed him as ' Mon fils,' while Philip, 
 in return, called the King ' Mon pere,' and these affectionate ap- 
 pellations are repeated in the treaty of peace and unity between 
 .the two countries, which was signed by Henry and Philip, while 
 sitting in their respective stalls, and to the maintenance of which 
 they were both then solemnly sworn. Previously to the offering, 
 Philip wished to stand before his stall, like the other knights, and 
 to follow the King to the altar, requesting to be allowed to do his 
 duty as a knight and brother of the order ought to do to the sover- 
 eign ; but Henry declined, and taking him by the left hand, the 
 two Kings offered together. After the ceremony, Philip invested 
 Henry, Prince of Wales, with the collar of the Golden Fleece, 
 into which order he had, it is said, been elected at Middleburgh in 
 the preceding year," 1506. 
 
 Under Henry YIH. we find the first Scottish monarch who ever 
 wore the Garter, namely James V. He accepted the insignia 
 " with princely heart and will," but, in a formal instrument, he set 
 down the statutes which he would swear to observe, and he re- 
 jected all others. Francis, King of France, Charles V., Em- 
 peror of Germany, and Ferdinand, King of Hungary, were also 
 members of the order. But the sovereign princes elected during 
 this reign did not outnumber the alien knights of less degree. 
 When Henry was at Calais, he held a chapter, at which Marshal 
 Montmorency, Count de Beaumont, and Philip de Chabot, Count 
 de Neublanc, were elected into the order. This occasion was the 
 first and only time that the Kings of England and France at- 
 tended together and voted as companions in the chapters of their 
 
174 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 respective orders. Like the other knights, Francis nominated for 
 election into the Garter, three earis or persons of higher degree, 
 three barons, and three knights-bachelors, and the names present 
 an interesting fact, which has not been generally noticed. Henry 
 was then enamored of Anne Boleyn, whom he had recently 
 created Marchioness of Pembroke, and who accompanied him to 
 Calais. With a solitary exception, the French King gave all his 
 suffrages for his own countrymen, and as the exception was in 
 favor of her brother, George, Lord Rochford, it was evidently in- 
 tended as a compliment to the future Queen of England. 
 
 It was the intention of Edward VI. to have created Lewis, 
 Marquis of Gonzaga, a knight of the order, but there is no evidence 
 that he was elected. It is difficult to ascertain the exact course of 
 things during this reign ; for Mary, subsequently, abrogated all the 
 changes made by Edward, in order to adopt the statutes to the ex- 
 igencies of the reformed religion. She did even more than this ; 
 she caused the register to be defaced, by erasing every insertion 
 which was not in accordance with the Romish faith. It is known, 
 however, that Henri II. of France was elected. His investiture 
 took place in a bed-room of the Louvre in Paris. He rewarded 
 the Garter King-at-arms with a gold chain worth two hundred 
 pounds, and his own royal robe, ornmented with "aglets," and 
 worth twenty -five pounds. Against this one sovereign prince we 
 have to set the person of an alien knight — the Constable of 
 France. The foreign royal names on the list were, however, on 
 the accession of Mary, three against one of foreign knights of lower 
 degree. That of Philip of Spain soon made the foreign royal ma- 
 jority still greater ; and this majority may be said to have been 
 further increased by the election of the sovereign Duke of Savoy. 
 Mary elected no foreign knight beneath the degree of sovereign 
 ruler — whether king or duke. 
 
 Elizabeth very closely followed the same principle. Her foreign 
 knights were sovereigns, or about to become so. The first was 
 Adolphus, Duke of Holstein, son of the King of Denmark, and 
 heir of Norway. The second was Charles IX. of France, and the 
 third, Frederick, King of Denmark; the Emperor Rudolf was, 
 perhaps, a fourth ; and the fifth, Henri Quatre, the last king of 
 France who wore the Garter till the accession of Louis XVni. 
 
FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER. 175 
 
 As for the Spanish widower of Mary, Sir Harris Nicholas ob- 
 serves, " Philip, king of Spain, is said to have returned the Garter 
 by the hands of the Queen's ambassador, Viscount Montague, who 
 had been sent to induce him to renew the alliance between England 
 and Burgundy. Philip did not conceal his regret at the change 
 which had taken place in the religion and policy of his country ; 
 but he displayed no sectarian bitterness, expresses himself still de- 
 sirous of opposing the designs of the French, who sought to have 
 Elizabeth excommunicated, and stated that he had taken measures 
 to prevent this in the eyes of a son of the Church of Rome, the 
 greatest of all calamities, from befalling her, without her own con- 
 sent. It appears, however, that Elizabeth did not accept of Philip's 
 resignation of the Garter, for he continued a companion until his 
 decease, notwithstanding the war between England and Spain, and 
 the attempt to invade this country by the Spanish Armada in 
 1588." 
 
 When I say Elizabeth closely followed the example of Mary 
 I should add as an instance wherein she departed therefrom — the 
 election of Francis Duke of Montmorency, envoy from the French 
 King. The Queen bestowed this honor on the Duke, " in grateful 
 commemoration," says Camden, " of the love which Anne, consta- 
 ble of France, his father, bore unto her." At the accession of 
 James I., however, Henri IV. of France was the only foreigner, 
 sovereign or otherwise, who wore the order of the Garter. Those 
 added by James were the King of Denmark, the Prince of Orange, 
 and the Prince Palatine. Of the latter I have spoken in another 
 place ; I will only notice further here, that under James, all pre- 
 cedence of stalls was taken away from princes below a certain 
 rank ; that is to say, the last knights elected, even the King's own 
 son, must take the last stall. It was also then declared "that all 
 princes, not absolute, should be installed, henceforth, in the puisne 
 place." 
 
 There was one foreign knight, however, whose installation de- 
 serves a word apart, for it was marked by unusual splendor, con- 
 sidering how very small a potentate was the recipient of the honor. 
 This was Christian, Duke of Brunswick- Wolfenbiittel. On the 
 last day of the year 1624, James, with his own hands, placed the 
 riband and George round the neck of the Duke. The latter was 
 
176 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 then twenty-four years of age. " The Duke of Brunswick," says 
 Chamberlain, in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, January 8, 1625, 
 "can not complain of his entertainment, which was eveiy way 
 complete, very good and gracious words from the King, with the 
 honor of the Garter, and a pension of two thousand pounds a 
 year. The Prince lodged him in his own lodgings, and at parting, 
 gave him three thousand pounds in gold, besides other presents." 
 James conferred the Garter on no less than seven of his Scottish 
 subjects. If these may be reckoned now, what they were consid- 
 ered then, as mere foreigners, the alien knights will again outnum- 
 ber the foreign sovereign princes, wearers of the Garter. 
 
 The first knight invested by Charles I. was an alien chevalier, 
 of only noble degree. This was the Duke de Chevreuse, who 
 was Charles's proxy at his nuptials with Henrietta Maria, and who 
 thus easily won the honors of chivalry among the Companions of 
 St. George. It seems, however, that the honor in question was 
 generally won by foreigners, because of their being engaged in 
 furthering royal marriages. Thus, when the King's agent in 
 Switzerland, Mr. Fleming, in the year 1633, suggested to the gov- 
 ernment that the Duke of Rohan should be elected a knight of the 
 Garter, Mr. Secretary Coke made reply that " The proposition 
 hath this inconvenience, that the rites of that ancient order comport 
 not with innovation, and no precedent can be found of any foreign 
 subject ever admitted into it, if he were not employed in an inter- 
 marriage with this crown, as the Duke of Chevreuse lately was." 
 There certainly was not a word of truth in what the Secretary Coke 
 thus deliberately stated. Not only had the Garter frequently been 
 conferred on foreign subjects who had had nothing to do as matri- 
 monial agents between sovereign lovers, but only twelve years after 
 Coke thus wrote, Charles conferred the order upon the Duke 
 d'Espernon, who had no claim to it founded upon such service as 
 is noticed by the learned secretary. 
 
 At the death of Charles I. there was not, strictly speaking, a 
 single foreign sovereign prince belonging to the order. The three 
 foreign princes, Rupert, "William of Orange, and the Elector Pala- 
 tine, can not justly be called so. The other foreign knights were 
 the Dukes of Chevreuse and Espernon. 
 
 The foreign knights of the order created by Charles II. were 
 
FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER. 177 
 
 Prince Edward, son of " Elizabeth of Bohemia ;" Prince Maurice, 
 his elder brother; Henry, eldest son of the Duke de Thouas, 
 William of Nassau, then three years of age, and subsequently our 
 William III. ; Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg ; Gaspar, 
 Count de Morchin ; Christian, Prince Royal of Denmark ; Charles 
 XI., King of Sweden ; George, Elector of Saxony ; and Prince 
 George of Denmark, husband of the Princess Anne. It will be 
 seen that those who could be strictly called " sovereign princes," 
 claiming allegiance and owing none, do not outnumber alien 
 knights who were expected to render obedience, and could not 
 sovereignly exert it. Denmark and Sweden, it may be observed, 
 quarrelled about precedency of stalls with as much bitterness as if 
 they had been burghers of the " Krahwinkel" of Kotzebue. 
 
 The short reign of James II. presents us with only one alien 
 Knight of the Garter, namely, Louis de Duras, created also Earl 
 of Feversham. " II etait le second de son nom," says the Bio- 
 graphic Universelle, " qui eut ete honore de cette decoration, re- 
 marque particuliere dans la noblesse Francaise." 
 
 The great Duke of Schomberg, that admirable warrior given 
 to England by the tyranny of Louis XIV., was the first person 
 invested with the Garter by William III. The other foreign 
 knights invested by him were the first King of Prussia, William 
 Duke of Zell, the Elector of Saxony, William Bentinck (Earl 
 of Portland), Von Keppel (Earl of Albemarle), and George of 
 Hanover (our George I.) Here the alien knights, not of sover- 
 eign degree, again outnumbered those who were of that degree. 
 The Elector of Saxony refused to join William against France, 
 unless the Garter were first conferred on him. 
 
 Anne conferred the Garter on Meinhardt Schomberg, Duke of 
 Leinster, son of the great Schomberg ; and also on George Augus- 
 tus of Hanover (subsequently George II. of England). Anne 
 intimated to George Louis, the father of George Augustus, that, 
 being a Knight of the Garter, he might very appropriately invest 
 his own son. George Louis, however, hated that son, and would 
 have nothing to do with conferring any dignity upon him. He 
 left it with the commissioners, Halifax and Vanbrugh, to act as 
 they pleased. They performed their vicarious office as they best 
 could, and that was only with " maimed rights." George Louis, 
 
 12 
 
178 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 with his ordinary spiteful meanness, ordered the ceremony to be 
 cut short of all display. He would not even permit his son to be 
 invested with the habit, under a canopy as was usual, and as had 
 been done in his own case ; all that he would grant was an ordi- 
 nary arm-chair, whereon the electoral prince might sit in state, 
 if he chose, or was able to do so ! These were the only foreigners 
 upon whom Anne conferred the Garter; an order which she 
 granted willingly to very few persons indeed. 
 
 " It is remarkable," says Nicolas, " that the order was not con- 
 ferred by Queen Anne upon the Emperor, nor upon any of the 
 other sovereigns with whom she was for many years confederated 
 against France. Nor did her Majesty bestow it upon King 
 Charles III. of Spain, who arrived in England in September, 
 1703, nor upon Prince Eugene (though, when she presented him 
 with a sword worth five thousand pounds sterling on taking his 
 leave in March, 1712 (there were seven vacant ribands), nor any 
 other of the great commanders of the allied armies who, under 
 the Duke of Marlborough, gained those splendid victories that 
 rendered her reign one of the most glorious in the annals of this 
 country." 
 
 George I. had more regard for his grandson than for his son ; 
 and he made Frederick (subsequently father of George III.) a 
 Companion of the Order, when he was not more than nine years 
 of age. He raised to the same honor his own brother, Prince 
 Ernest Augustus, and invested both knights at a Chapter held in 
 Hanover in 1711. With this family exception, the Order of the 
 Garter was not conferred upon any foreign prince in the reign of 
 George I. 
 
 George H. gave the Garter to that deformed Prince of Orange 
 who married his excitable daughter Anne. The same honor was 
 conferred on Prince Frederick of Hesse Cassel, who espoused 
 George's amiable daughter Mary; Prince Frederick of Saxe 
 Gotha, the Duke of Saxe Weisenfels, the Margrave of Anspach, 
 the fatherless son of the Prince of Orange last named, and, wor- 
 thiest of all, that Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick who won the 
 honor by gaming the battle of Minden. He was invested with 
 cap, habit, and decorations, in front of his tent and in the face of 
 his whole army. His gallant enemy, De Broglie, to do honor to 
 
FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER. 179 
 
 the new knight, proclaimed a suspension of arms for the day, drew 
 up his own troops where they could witness the spectacle of cour- 
 age and skill receiving their reward, and with his principal officers 
 dining with the Prince in the evening. " Each party," says Miss 
 Banks, " returned at night to his army, in order to recommence 
 the hostilities they were engaged in, by order of their respective 
 nations, against each other, on the next rising of the sun." I do 
 not know what this anecdote most proves — the cruel absurdity 
 of war, or the true chivalry of warriors. 
 
 The era of George III. was indeed that in which foreign princes, 
 sovereign and something less than that, abounded in the order. 
 The first who received the Garter was the brother of Queen 
 Charlotte, the reigning Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz. Then 
 came the Duke of Brunswick-TVolfenbiittel, who married Augusta, 
 the sister of George III. Caroline of Brunswick was the issue 
 of this marriage. Of the kings, roitelets, and petty princes of 
 Germany who were added to the Garter, or rather, had the Gar- 
 ter added to them, it is not worth while speaking ; but there is an 
 incident connected with the foreign knights which does merit to be 
 preserved. When Bonaparte founded the Legion of Honor, he 
 prevailed on the King of Prussia (willing to take anything for 
 his own, and reluctant to sacrifice anything for the public good) 
 to accept the cross of the Legion for himself, and several others 
 assigned to him for distribution. The king rendered himself justly 
 abhorred for this disgraceful act; but he found small German 
 princes quite as eager as he was to wear the badge of the then 
 enemy of Europe. A noble exception presented itself in the 
 person of the Duke of Brunswick, a Knight of the Garter, to 
 whom the wretched king sent the insignia of the French order in 
 1805. The duke, in a letter to the king, refused to accept such 
 honor, " because, in his quality of Knight of the most noble Order 
 of the Garter, he was prevented from receiving any badge of 
 chivalry instituted by a person at war with the sovereign of that 
 order." The Prussian king found an easier conscience in the 
 Prince of Hesse Cassel, who was also a Knight of the Garter. 
 This individual, mean and double-faced as the king, wore the cross 
 of the Legion of Honor with the Garter. At that troubled pe- 
 riod, it was exactly as if some nervous lairds, in the days of High- 
 
180 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 land feuds, had worn, at the same time, the plaids of the Mac- 
 donalds and Campbells, in order to save their skins and estates by 
 thus pretending to be members of two hostile parties. 
 
 Under the Regency of George IV., the foreign sovereign princes 
 were admitted into the order without any regard whatever to the 
 regulations by statute. Within one year, or very little more than 
 that period, two emperors, three kings, and an heir to a throne, 
 who soon after came to his inheritance, were enrolled Companions 
 of the order. But it was the era of victories and rejoicings, and 
 no one thought of objecting to a prodigality which would have as- 
 tounded the royal founder. Long after the period of victory, how- 
 ever, the same liberality continued to be evinced toward foreign 
 princes of sovereign degree. Thus at the accession of Charles 
 X., the England monarch despatched the Duke of Northumber- 
 land as Embassador Extraordinary to attend at the coronation of 
 the French monarch, and to invest him, subsequently, with the 
 Order of the Garter. I remember seeing the English procession 
 pass from the duke's residence in the Rue du Bac, over the Pont 
 E-oyal to the Tuileries. It puzzled the French people extremely. 
 It took place on Tuesday, June 7, 1825. At noon, "four of the 
 royal carriages," says the Galignani of the period, "drawn by 
 eight horses, in which were the Baron de Lalrvre and M. de Viv- 
 iers, were sent to the Hotel Galifet for the Duke of Northumber- 
 land." The two envoys who thus contrived to ride in four car- 
 riages and eight horses — a more wonderful feat than was ever 
 accomplished by Mr. Ducrow — having reached the ducal hotel, 
 were received by the duke, Lord Granville, our ordinary embas- 
 sador, and Sir George Naylor, his Britannic Majesty's Commis- 
 sioners charged to invest the King of France with the insignia of 
 the Garter. The procession then set out ; and, as I have said, it 
 perplexed the French spectators extremely. They could not 
 imagine that so much ceremony was necessary in order to put a 
 garter round a leg, and hang a collar from a royal neck. Besides 
 the four French carriages-and-eight, there were three of the 
 duke's carriages drawn by six horses ; one carriage of similar 
 state, and two others more modestly drawn by pairs, belonging to 
 Lord Granville. The carriage of " Garter" himself, behind a 
 couple of ordinary steeds ; and eight other carriages, containing 
 
FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER. 181 
 
 the suites of the embassadors, or privileged persons who passed 
 for such in order to share in the spectacle, closed the procession. 
 The duke had a very noble gathering around him, namely, the 
 Hon. Algernon Percy, his secretary, the Marquis of Caermarthen, 
 the Earl of Hopetoun, Lords Prudhoe (the present duke), Strat- 
 haven, Pelham, and Hervey, the Hon. Charles Percy, and the 
 goodhumored-looking Archdeacon Singleton. Such was the en- 
 tourage of the embassador extraordinary. The ordinary embas- 
 sador, Lord Granville, was somewhat less nobly surrounded. He 
 had with him the Hon. Mr. Bligh, and Messrs. Mandeville, Gore, 
 Abercrombie, and Jones. Sir George Naylor, in his Tabard, was 
 accompanied by a cloud of heralds, some of whom have since be- 
 come kings-of-arms — namely, Messrs. Woods, Young, and Wol- 
 laston, and his secretary, Mr. Howard. More noticeable men 
 followed in the train. There were Earl Gower and Lord Burg- 
 hersh, the " Honorables" Mr. Townshend, Howard, and Clive, 
 Captain Buller, and two men more remarkable than all the rest — 
 the two embassadors included — namely, Sir John Malcolm and 
 Sir Sidney Smith. Between admiring spectators, who were pro- 
 foundly amazed at the sight of the duke in his robes, the procession 
 arrived at the palace, where, after a pause and a reorganizing in 
 the Hall of Embassadors, the party proceeded in great state into 
 the Gallery of Diana. Here a throne had been especially erected 
 for the investiture, and the show was undoubtedly most splendid. 
 Charles X. looked in possession of admirable health and spirits — 
 of everything, indeed, but bright intellect. He was magnificently 
 surrounded. The duke wore with his robes that famous diamond- 
 hilted sword which had been presented to him by George IV., and 
 which cost, I forget how many thousand ponnds. His heron's 
 plume alone was said to be worth five hundred guineas. His 
 superb mantle of blue velvet, embroidered with gold, was support- 
 ed by his youthful nephew, George Murray (the present Duke of 
 Athol), dressed in a Hussar uniform, and the Hon. James Drum- 
 mond, in a Highland suit. Seven gentlemen had the responsible 
 mission of carrying the insignia on cushions, and Sir George pre- 
 ceded them, bearing a truncheon, as " Garter Principal King-at- 
 arms." The duke recited an appropriate address, giving a concise 
 history of the order, and congratulating himself on having been 
 
182 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 employed on the present honorable mission. The investiture took 
 place with the usual ceremonies ; but I remember that there was 
 no salute of artillery, as was enjoined in the book of instructions 
 drawn up by Garter. The latter official performed his office most 
 gracefully, and attached to the person of the King of France, that 
 day, pearls worth a million of francs. The royal knight made a 
 very pleasant speech when all was concluded, and the usual hos- 
 pitality followed the magnificent labors of an hour and a half's 
 continuance. 
 
 On the following evening, the Duke gave a splendid fete at his 
 hotel, in honor of the coronation of Charles X., and of his admission 
 into the Order of the Garter. The King and Queen of Wurtem- 
 burg were present, with some fifteen hundred persons of less rank, 
 but many of- whom were of greater importance in society. Per- 
 haps not the least remarkable feature of the evening was the pres- 
 ence together, in one group, of the Dauphin and that Duchess of 
 Angouleme who was popularly known as the " orphan girl of the 
 Temple," with the Duchess of Berri, the Duke of Orleans (Louis 
 Philippe), and Talleyrand. The last-named still wore the long 
 bolster-cravat, of the time of the Revolution, and looked as cunning 
 as though he knew the destiny that awaited the entire group, three 
 of whom have since died in exile — he alone breathing his last 
 sigh, in calm tranquillity, in his own land. 
 
 Charles X. conferred on the ducal bearer of the insignia of the 
 Garter a splendid gift — one of the finest and most costly vases 
 ever produced at the royal manufacture of Porcelain at Sevres. 
 The painting on it, representing the Tribunal of Diana, is the 
 work of M. Leguai, and it occupied that distinguished artist full 
 three years before it was completed. Considering its vast dimen- 
 sions, the nature of the painting, and its having passed twice 
 through the fire without the slightest alteration, it is unique of its 
 kind. This colossal vase now stands in the centre of the ball-room 
 in Northumberland House. 
 
 The last monarch to whom a commission has carried the insignia 
 of the Garter, was the Czar Nicholas. It was characteristic of the 
 man that, courteous as he was to the commissioners, he would not, 
 as was customary in such cases, dine with them. They were en- 
 tertained, however, according to his orders, by other members of 
 
FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER. 183 
 
 his family. It is since the reign of George III. that Mr. Macau- 
 lay's remark touching the fact of the Garter being rarely conferred 
 on aliens, except sovereign princes, may be said to be well-founded. 
 No alien, under princely rank, now wears the Garter. The most 
 illustrious of the foreign knights are the two who were last created 
 by patent, namely, the Emperor Louis Napoleon and the King of 
 Sardinia. The King of Prussia is also a knight of the order, and, 
 as such, he is bound by his oath never to act against the sovereign 
 of that order ; but in our struggle with felonious Russia, the Prus- 
 sian government, affecting to be neutral, imprisons an English 
 consul on pretence that the latter has sought to enlist natives of 
 Prussia into the English service, while, on the other hand, it passes 
 over to Russia the material for making war, and sanctions the 
 raising of a Russian loan in Berlin, to be devoted, as far as possi- 
 ble, to the injury of England. The King is but a poor knight ! — 
 and, by the way, that reminds me that the once so-called poor 
 knights of Windsor can not be more appropriately introduced than 
 here. 
 
184 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 THE POOR KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR, 
 
 AND THEIR DOINGS. 
 
 The founder of the Order of the Garter did well when he 
 thought of the " Milites pauperes," and having created a fraternity 
 for wealthy and noble cavaliers, created one also for the same 
 number of " poor knights, infirm of body, indigent and decayed," 
 who should be maintained for the honor of God and St. George, 
 continually serve God in their devotions, and have no further 
 heavy duty, after the days of bustle and battle, than to pray for 
 the prosperity of all living knights of the Garter, and for the re- 
 pose of the souls of all those who were dead. It was resolved that 
 none but really poor knights should belong to the fraternity, 
 whether named, as was their privilege, by a companion of the 
 noble order, or by the sovereign, as came at last to be exclusively 
 the case. If a poor knight had the misfortune to become the pos- 
 sessor of property of any sort realizing twenty pounds per annum, 
 he became at once disqualified for companionship. Even in very 
 early times, his position, with house, board, and various aids, spir- 
 itual and bodily, was worth more than this. 
 
 To be an alms knight, as Ashmole calls each member, implied 
 no degradation whatever; quite the contrary. Each poor but 
 worthy gentleman was placed on a level with the residentiary 
 canons of Windsor, Like these, they received twelvepence each, 
 every day that they attended service in the chapel, or abode in the 
 College, with a honorarium of forty shillings annually for small 
 necessaries. Their daily presence at chapel was compulsory, ex- 
 cept good and lawful reason could be shown for the contrary. The 
 old knights were not only required to be at service, but at high 
 mass, the masses of the Virgin Mary, as also at Vespers and 
 Complins- — from the beginning to the end. They earned their 
 
THE POOR KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR. 18D 
 
 twelvepence honestly, but nevertheless the ecclesiastical corpora- 
 tion charged with the payment, often did what such corporations, 
 of course, have never tried to do since the Reformation — namely, 
 cheat those who ought to have been recipients of their due. Dire 
 were the discussions between the poor (and pertinacious) knights, 
 and the dean, canons, and treasurers of the College. It required 
 a mitred Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England to 
 settle the dispute, and a very high opinion does it afford us of the 
 good practical sense of Church and Chancery in the days of Henry 
 VI., when we find that the eminent individual with the double office 
 not only came to a happy conclusion rapidly, and ordered all ar- 
 rears to be paid to the poor knights, but decreed that the income 
 of the treasurer should be altogether stopped, until full satisfaction 
 was rendered to the "milites pauper." For the sake of such 
 Chancery practice one would almost consent to take the Church 
 with it. 
 
 But not only did the lesser officials of that Church cheat the 
 veteran knights of their pay, but their itching palm inflicted other 
 wrong. It was the fitting custom to divide the fines, levied upon 
 absentees from public worship, among the more habitually devout 
 brethren. Gradually, however, the dean and canons appropriated 
 these moneys to themselves, so that the less godly the knights 
 were, the richer were the dean and canons. Further, many dy- 
 ing noblemen had bequeathed very valuable legacies to the Col- 
 lege and poor fraternity of veterans. These the business-like 
 ecclesiastics had devoted to their own entire profit ; and it required 
 stringent command from king and bishop, in the reign of Richard 
 II., before they would admit the military legatees even to a share 
 in the bequest. 
 
 Not, indeed, that the stout old veterans were always blameless. 
 Good living and few cares made " fast men " of some of them. 
 There were especially two in the reign last named, who created 
 very considerable scandal. These were a certain Sir Thomas 
 Tawne and Sir John Breton. They were married men, but the 
 foolish old fellows performed homage to vessels of iniquity, placed 
 by them on the domestic altar. In other words, they were by far 
 too civil to a couple of hussies with red faces and short kirtles, 
 and that — not that such circumstance rendered the matter worse — 
 
186 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 before the eyes of their faithful and legitimate wives. The bishop 
 was horror-stricken, no doubt, and the exemplary ecclesiastics of 
 the College were enjoined to remonstrate, reprove, and, if amend- 
 ment did not follow, to expel the offenders. 
 
 Sir Thomas, I presume, heeded the remonstrance and submitted 
 to live more decorously, for nothing more is said of him. Jolly 
 Sir John was more difficult to deal with. He too may have dis- 
 missed Cicely and made his peace with poor Lady Breton, but 
 the rollicking old knight kept the College in an uproar, neverthe- 
 less. He resumed attendance at chapel, indeed, but he did this 
 after a fashion of Jiis own. He would walk slowly in the pro- 
 cession of red-mantled brethren on their way to service, so as to 
 obstruct those who were in the rear, or he would walk in a ridicu- 
 lous manner, so as to rouse unseemly laughter. I am afraid that 
 old Sir John was a very sad dog, and, however the other old 
 gentleman may have behaved, he was really a godless fellow. 
 Witness the fact that, on getting into chapel, when he retired to 
 pray, he forthwith fell asleep, and could, or would, hardly keep his 
 eyes open, even at the sacrament at the altar. 
 
 After all, there was a gayer old fellow than Sir John Breton 
 among the poor knights. One Sir Emanuel Cloue is spoken of 
 who appears to have been a very Don Giovanni among the silly 
 maids and merry wives of Windsor. He was for ever with his 
 eye on a petticoat and his hand on a tankard ; and what with love 
 and spiced canary, he could never sit still at mass, but was ad- 
 dicted to running about among the congregation. It would puz- 
 zle St. George himself to tell all the nonsense he talked on these 
 occasions. 
 
 When we read how the bishop suggested that the King and 
 ' Council should discover a remedy to check the rollicking career 
 of Sir Edmund, we are at first perplexed to make out why the 
 cure was not assigned to the religious officials. The fact, how- 
 ever, is that they were as bad as, or worse than, the knights. 
 They too were as often to be detected with their lips on the brim 
 of a goblet, or on the cheek of a damsel. There was Canon 
 Lorying. He was addicted to hawking, hunting, and jollification ; 
 and the threat of dismissal, without chance of reinstalment, was 
 had recourse to, before the canon ceased to make breaches in de- 
 
THE POOR KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR. 187 
 
 corum. The vicars were as bad as the canons. The qualifica- 
 tions ascribed to them of being " inflated and wanton," suffi- 
 ciently describe by what sins these very reverend gentlemen were 
 beset. They showed no reverence for the frolicsome canons, as 
 might have been expected; and if both parties united in ex- 
 hibiting as little veneration for the dean, the reason, doubtless, lay 
 in the circumstance that the dean, as the bishop remarked, was 
 remiss, simple, and negligent, himself. He was worse than this. 
 He not only allowed the documents connected with the Order to 
 go to decay, or be lost, but he would not pay the vicars their sala- 
 ries till he was compelled to do so by high authority. The dean, 
 in short, was a sorry knave ; he even embezzled the fees paid 
 when a vicar occupied a new stall, and which were intended to be 
 appropriated to the general profit of the chapter, and pocketed the 
 entire proceeds for his own personal profit and enjoyment. The 
 canons again made short work of prayers and masses, devoting 
 only an hour each day for the whole. This arrangement may not 
 have displeased the more devout among the knights ; and the 
 canons defied the bishop to point out anything in the statutes by 
 which they were prevented from effecting this abbreviation of their 
 service, and earning their shilling easily. Of this ecclesiastical 
 irregularity the bishop, curiously enough, solicited the state to 
 pronounce its condemnation ; and an order from King and Council 
 was deemed a good remedy for priests of loose thoughts and prac- 
 tices. A matter of more moment was submitted to the jurisdic- 
 tion of meaner authority. Thus, when one of the vicars, John 
 Chichester, was " scandalized respecting the wife of Thomas 
 Swift" (which is a very pretty way of putting his offence), the 
 matter was left to the correction of the dean, who was himself 
 censurable, if not under censure — for remissness, negligence, 
 stupidity, and fraud. The dean's frauds were carried on to that 
 extent that a legacy of £200 made to the brotherhood of poor 
 knights, having come to the decanal hands, and the dean not 
 having accounted for the same, compulsion was put on him to ren- 
 der such account ; and that appears to be all the penalty he ever 
 paid for his knavery. Where the priests were of such kidney, 
 we need not wonder that the knights observed in the dirty and 
 
188 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 much-encumbered cloisters, the licentiousness which was once com- 
 mon to men in the camp. 
 
 Churchmen and knights went on in their old courses, notwith- 
 standing the interference of inquisitors. Alterations were made 
 in the statutes, to meet the evil ; some knights solicited incorpora- 
 tion among themselves, separate from the Church authorities ; but 
 this and other remedies were vainly applied. 
 
 In the reign of Henry VIII. the resident knights were not all 
 military men. Some of them were eminent persons, who, it is 
 thought, withdrew from the world and joined the brotherhood, out 
 of devotion. Thus there was Sir Robert Champlayne, who had 
 been a right lusty knight, indeed, and who proved himself so again, 
 after he returned once more to active life. Among the laymen, 
 admitted to be poor knights, were Hulme, formerly Clarencieux 
 King-at-arms ; Carly, the King's physician : Mewtes, the King's 
 secretary for the French language ; and Westley, who was made 
 second baron of the Exchequer in 1509. 
 
 The order appears to have fallen into hopeless confusion, but 
 Henry VIH., who performed many good acts, notwithstanding his 
 evil deeds and propensities, bequeathed lands, the profits whereof 
 (£600) were to be employed in the maintenance of "Thirteen 
 Poor Knights." Each was to have a shilling a day, and their 
 governor, three pounds, six and eightpence, additional yearly. 
 Houses were built for these knights on the south side of the lower 
 ward of the castle, where they are still situated, at a cost of nearly 
 £3000. A white cloth-gown and a red cloth-mantle, appropriately 
 decorated, were also assigned to each knight. King James doubled 
 the pecuniary allowance, and made it payable in the Exchequer, 
 quarterly. 
 
 Charles I. intended to increase the number of knights to their 
 original complement. He did not proceed beyond the intention. 
 Two of his subjects, however, themselves knights, Sir Peter La 
 Maire and Sir Francis Crane, left lands which supplied funds for 
 the support of five additional knights. 
 
 Cromwell took especial care that no knight should reside at 
 Windsor, who was hostile to his government ; and he was as care- 
 ful that no preacher should hold forth there, who was not more 
 friendly to the commonwealth than to monarchy. 
 
THE POOR KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR. 189 
 
 At this period, and for a hundred years before this, there was 
 not a man of real knight's degree belonging to the order, nor has 
 there since been down to the present time. In 1724 the benevo- 
 lent Mr. Travers bequeathed property to be applied to the main- 
 tenance of Seven Naval Knights. It is scarcely credible, but it is 
 the fact, that seventy years elapsed before our law, which then 
 hung a poor wretch for robbing to the amount of forty shillings, let 
 loose the funds to be appropriated according to the will of the testa- 
 tor, and under sanction of the sovereign. What counsellors and 
 attorneys fattened upon the costs, meantime, it is not now of im- 
 portance to inquire. In 1796, thirteen superannuated or disabled 
 lieutenants of men-of-war, officers of that rank being alone eligible 
 under Mr. Travers's will, were duly provided for. The naval 
 knights, all unmarried, have residences and sixty pounds per annum 
 each, in addition to their half-pay. The sum of ten shillings, 
 weekly, is deducted from the " several allowances, to keep a con- 
 stant table." 
 
 The Military and Naval Knights — for the term "Poor" was 
 dropped, by order of William IV. — no longer wear the mantle, as 
 in former times ; but costumes significant of their profession and. 
 their rank therein. There are twenty-five of them, one less than 
 their original number, and they live in harmony with each other 
 and the Church. The ecclesiastical corporation has nothing to do 
 with their funds, and these unmarried naval knights do not disturb 
 the slumbers of a single Mr. Brook within the liberty of Windsor. 
 
 In concluding this division, let me add a word touching the 
 
 KNIGHTS OF THE BATH. 
 
 There was no more gallant cavalier in his day than Geoffrey, 
 Earl of Anjou. He was as meek as he was gallant. In testimony 
 of his humility he assumed a sprig of the broom plant (planta 
 genista) for his device, and thereby he gave the name of Plantage- 
 net to the long and illustrious line. 
 
 If his bravery raised him in the esteem of women, his softness 
 of spirit earned for him some ridicule. Matilda, the " imperially 
 perverse," laughed outright when her sire proposed she should ac- 
 cept the hand of Geoffrey of Anjou. " He is so like a girl," said 
 
190 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Matilda. " There is not a more lion-hearted knight in all Chris- 
 tendom," replied the king. " There is none certainly so sheep- 
 faced," retorted the arrogant heiress ; she then reluctlantly con- 
 sented to descend to be mate of the wearer of the broom. 
 
 Matilda threw as many obstacles as she could in the way of the 
 completion of the nuptial ceremony. At last this solemn matter 
 was definitively settled to come off at Rouen, on the 26th of August, 
 1127. Geoffrey must have been a knight before his marriage 
 with Matilda. However this may be, he is said to have been cre- 
 ated an English knight in honor of the occasion. To show how 
 he esteemed the double dignity of knight and husband, he prepared 
 himself for both, by first taking a bath, and afterward putting on a 
 clean linen shirt. Chroniclers assure us that this is the first in- 
 stance, since the Normans came into England, in which bathing is 
 mentioned in connection with knighthood. Over his linen shirt 
 Geoffrey wore a gold-embroidered garment, and above all a purple 
 mantle. We are told too that he wore silk stockings, an article 
 which is supposed to have been unknown in England until a much 
 later period. His feet were thrust into a gay pair of slippers, on 
 the outside of each of which was worked a golden Hon. In this 
 guise he was wedded to Matilda, and never had household lord a 
 greater virago for a lady. 
 
 From this circumstance the Knights of the Bath are said to have 
 had their origin. For a considerable period, this order of chivalry 
 ranked as the highest military order in Europe. All the members 
 were companions. There was but one chief, and no knight ranked 
 higher, nor lower, than any other brother of the society. The 
 order, nevertheless, gradually became obsolete. Vacancies had 
 not been filled up ; that Garter had superseded the Bath, and it 
 was not till the reign of George H. that the almost extinct frater- 
 nity was renewed. 
 
 Its revival took place for political reasons, and these are well 
 detailed by Horace Walpole, in his " Reminiscences of the Courts 
 of George the First and Second." " It was the measure," he says, 
 " of Sir Robert Walpole, and was an artful bunch of thirty-six rib- 
 ands, to supply a fund of favors, in lieu of places. He meant, too, 
 to stave off the demand for garters, and intended that the red 
 should have been a stage to the blue ; and accordingly took one 
 
THE POOR KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR. 191 
 
 of the former himself. He offered the new order to old Sarah, 
 Duchess of Marlborough, for her grandson the Duke, and for the 
 Duke of Bedford, who had married one of her granddaughters. 
 She haughtily replied, that they should take nothing but the Gar- 
 ter. ' Madam,' said Sir Robert, coolly, ' they who take the Bath 
 will the sooner have the Garter.' The next year he took the latter 
 himself, with the Duke of Richmond, both having been previously 
 installed knights of the revived institution." 
 
 Sir Robert respected the forms and laws of the old institution, 
 and these continued to be observed down to the period following 
 the battle of Waterloo. Instead of their creating a new order for 
 the purpose of rewarding the claimants for distinction, it was re- 
 solved to enlarge that of the Bath, which was, therefore, divided 
 into three classes. 
 
 First, there was the Grand Cross of the Bath (G. C. B.), the 
 reward of military and diplomatic services. 
 
 The second class, of Knights Commanders (C. B.), was open to 
 those meritorious persons who had the good luck to hold commis- 
 sions not below the rank of Lieutenant- Colonel or Post-Captain. 
 The members of this class rank above the ordinary knights- 
 bachelors. 
 
 The third class, of Knights Companions, was instituted for offi- 
 cers holding inferior commissions to those named above, and whose 
 services in their country's cause rendered them eligible for admis- 
 sion. 
 
 These arrangements have been somewhat modified subsequently, 
 and not without reason. Henry Vllth's Chapel in Westminster 
 Abbey is the locality in which the installation of the different 
 knights takes place. The statutes of the order authorize the deg- 
 radation of a knight " convicted of heresy against the Articles of 
 the Christian religion ;" or who has been " attainted of high trea- 
 son," or of " cowardly flying from some field of battle." It is 
 rather curious that felony is not made a ground of degradation. 
 The Duke of Ormond was the last Knight of the Garter who was 
 degraded, for treason against George I. Addison, after the degra- 
 dation, invariably speaks of him as " the late Duke." A more 
 grievous offender than he was that Earl of Somerset, who had 
 been a reckless page, and who was an unworthy Knight of the 
 
192 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Garter, under James I. He was convicted of murder, but he was 
 not executed, and to the day of his death he continued to wear the 
 Gaiter, of which he had been pronounced unworthy. The last 
 instances of degradation from the Order of the Bath were those of 
 Lord Cochrane (in 1814), for an alleged misdemeanor, and Sir 
 Eyre Coote, two years subsequently. In these cases the popular 
 judgment did not sanction the harsh measures adopted by those in 
 authority.* 
 
 In olden times, the new Knights of the Bath made as gallant 
 display in public as the Knights of the Garter. In reference to 
 this matter, Mr. Mackenzie Walcott, in Ins " Westminster," cites 
 a passage from an author whom he does not name. The reverend 
 gentleman says: "On Sunday, July 24th, 1603, was performed 
 the solemnity of Knights of the Bath riding honorably from St. 
 James's to the Court, and made show with their squires and pages 
 about the Tilt-yard, and after went into the park of St. James, and 
 there lighted from their horses and went up into the King's Majes- 
 ty's presence, in the gallery, where they received the order of 
 Knighthood of the Bath." 
 
 The present " Horse- Guards" occupies a portion of the old Tilt- 
 yard ; but for the knightly doings there, and also in Smithfield, I 
 must refer all curious readers to Mr. Charles Knight's " Pictorial 
 History of London." 
 
 The Order of the Thistle, if Scottish antiquaries may be 
 credited, is almost as ancient as the times hi which the first thistle 
 was nibbled at by the primitive wild-ass. Very little, however, is 
 known upon the subject, and that little is not worth repeating. 
 The earliest certain knowledge dates from Robert H., whose coins 
 bore the impress of St. Andrew and his cross. James IH. is the 
 first monarch who is known to have worn the thistle, as his badge. 
 There is no evidence of these emblems being connected with 
 knighthood until the reign of James V. The Reformers, subse- 
 quently, suppressed the chivalric order, as popish, and it was not 
 till the reign of James n. of England that the thistle and chivalry 
 again bloomed together. The order is accessible only to peers. 
 
 # Subsequently, the Prince Kegent ordered the name of Captain Hanchett 
 to be erased from the roll of the Bath, he having been struck off the list of 
 Captains in the Royal Navy. 
 
THE POOR KNIGHTS OP WINDSOR. 193 
 
 A commoner may have conferred more honor and service on his 
 country than all the Scottish peers put together, but no amount 
 of merit could procure him admission into the Order of the 
 Thistle. Nevertheless three commoners did once belong to it ; 
 but their peculiar merit was that they were heirs presumptive to 
 dukedoms. 
 
 Ireland was left without an order until the year 1783, when 
 George III. good-naturedly established that of St. Patrick, to the 
 great delight of many who desired to be knights, and to the in- 
 finite disgust of all who were disappointed. Except in name and 
 local circumstances there is nothing that distinguishes it from other 
 orders. 
 
 I must not conclude this section without remarking, that shortly 
 after the sovereignty of Malta and the Ionian Isles was ceded to 
 Great Britain, the Order of St. Michael was instituted in 1818, 
 for the Purpose of having what Walpole calls " a fund of ribands," 
 to reward those native gentlemen who had deserved or desired 
 favors, if not places. 
 
 The Order of the Guelphs was founded by the Prince Regent 
 in 1815. George III. had designed such an order for the most 
 distinguished of his Hanoverian subjects. Down to the period of 
 the accession of Queen Victoria, however, the order was conferred 
 on a greater number of Englishmen than of natives of Hanover. 
 Since the latter Kingdom has passed under the rule of the male 
 heir of the line of Brunswick, the order of Guelph has become a 
 foreign order. Licenses to accept this or any other foreign order 
 does not authorize the assumption of any style, appellation, rank, 
 precedence, or privilege appertaining unto a knight-bachelor of 
 these realms. Such is the law as laid down by a decision of Lord 
 Ellenborough, and which does not agree with the judgment of 
 Coke. 
 
 The history of foreign orders would occupy too much of my 
 space ; but there is something so amusing in the history of an order 
 of knights called k ' Knights of the Holy Ampoule," that a few 
 words on the subject may not be unacceptable to such readers as 
 are unacquainted with the ephemeral cavaliers in question, 
 
 13 
 
194 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 THE KNIGHTS OF THE " SAINTE AMPOULE." 
 
 " Mais ce sont des chevaliers pour rire." — he Sage. 
 
 There have been knights who, like " special constables/' have 
 been created merely "for the nonce;" and who have been as 
 ephemeral as the shortlived flies so called. This was especially 
 the case with the Knights of the Holy "Ampoule," or anointing 
 oil, used at the coronation of the kings of France. 
 
 This oil was said to have been brought to St. Remy (Remigius) 
 by a dove, from Heaven, and to have been placed by the great 
 converter of Clovis, in his own tomb, where it was found, by a 
 miraculous process. St. Remy himself never alluded either to 
 the oil or the story connected with it. Four centuries after the 
 saint's death the matter was first spoken — nay, the oil was boldly 
 distilled, by Hinckmar, Archbishop of Rheims. This archi-epis- 
 copal biographer of St. Remy has inserted wonders in the saint's 
 life, which staggered, while they amused, the readers who were able 
 to peruse his work by fireside, in castle-hall, or convert refectory. 
 I can only allude to one of these wonders — namely, the " Sainte 
 Ampoule." Hinckmar actually asserted that when St. Remy was 
 about to consecrate with oil, the humble King Clovis, at his corona- 
 tion, a dove descended from Heaven, and placed in his hands a 
 small vial of holy oil. Hinckmar defied any man to prove the 
 contrary. As he further declared that the vial of oil was still to 
 be found in the saint's sepulchre, and as it was so found, accord- 
 ingly, Hinckmar was allowed to have proved his case. Thence- 
 forward, the chevaliers of the St. Ampoule were created, for a 
 day — that of the crowning of the sovereign. They had charge 
 of the vial, delivered it to the archbishop, and saw it restored to 
 its repository ; and therewith, the coronation and their knightly 
 
THE KNIGHTS OF THE « SAINTE AMPOULE." 195 
 
 character concluded together. From that time, down to the period 
 of Louis XVI., the knights and the vial formed the most distin- 
 guished portion of the coronation procession and doings at the 
 crowning of the kings of France. 
 
 Then ensued the Revolution ; and as that mighty engine never 
 touched anything without smashing it, you may be sure that the 
 vial of St. Remy hardly escaped destruction. 
 
 On the 6th of October, 1793, Citizen Rhull entered the modest 
 apartment of Philippe Hourelle, chief marguiUier of the Cathedral 
 of Rheims, and without ceremony demanded that surrender should 
 be made to him of the old glass-bottle of the ci-devant Remy. Phil- 
 ippe's wig raised itself with horror ; but as Citizen Rhull told him 
 that it would be as easy to lift his head from his shoulders as his 
 wig from his head, if he did not obey, the marguiUier stammered 
 crut an assertion that the reliquary was in the keeping of the cure, 
 M. Seraine, to whom he would make instant application. 
 
 " Bring pomatum and all," said Citizen Rhull, who thus pro- 
 fanely misnamed the sacred balm or thickened oil, which had 
 anointed the head and loins of so many kings from Charles the 
 Bald, downward. 
 
 " May I ask," said Philippe, timidly, " what you will do there- 
 with?" 
 
 " Grease your neck, that the knife may slip the easier through 
 it, unless you bring it within a decade of minutes." 
 
 " Too much honor by half," exclaimed Philippe. " I will slip 
 to the cure as rapidly as if I slid the whole way on the precious 
 ointment itself. Meanwhile, here is a bottle of Burgundy — " 
 
 " Which I shall have finished within the time specified. So, 
 despatch ; and let us have t'other bottle, too !" 
 
 When Philippe Hourelle had communicated the request to the 
 cure, Monsieur Seraine, with a quickness of thought that did jus- 
 tice to his imagination, exclaimed, " We will take the rogues in, 
 and give them a false article for the real one." But the time was 
 so short ; there was no second ancient-looking vial at hand ; there 
 was not a pinch of pomatum, nor a spoonful of oil in the house, 
 and the cure confessed, with a sigh, that the genuine relic must 
 needs be surrendered. " But we can save some of it ! " cried M. 
 Seraine ; " here is the vial, give me the consecrating spoon." 
 
196 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 And with the handle of the spoon, having extracted some small 
 portions, which the cure subsequently wrapped up carefully, and 
 rather illegibly labelled, the vial was delivered to Philippe, who 
 surrendered it to Citizen Ehull, who carried the same to the front 
 of the finest cathedral in France, and at the foot of the statue of 
 Louis XV. Citizen Ehull solemnly hammered the vial into powder, 
 and, in the name of the Republic, trod the precious ointment un- 
 derfoot till it was not to be distinguished from the mud with which 
 it was mingled. 
 
 " And so do we put an end to princes and pomatum," cried he. 
 
 Philippe coughed evasively ; smiled as if he was of the same 
 way of thinking with the republican, and exclaimed, very mentally 
 indeed, " Vivent les princes et la pommade." Neither, he felt as- 
 sured, was irrevocably destroyed. 
 
 The time, indeed, did come round again for princes, and Napo- 
 leon was to be crowned at Notre Dame. lie cared little as to 
 what had become' of the Heaven-descended ointment, and he 
 might have anointed, as well as crowned, himself. There were 
 some dozen gentlemen who hoped that excuse might be discovered 
 for creating the usual order of the Knights of the Ampoule ; but 
 the Emperor did not care a fig for knights or ointment, and, to 
 the horror of all who hoped to be chevaliers, the imperial corona- 
 tion was celebrated without either. But then Napoleon was dis- 
 crowned, as was to be expected from such profanity ; and there- 
 with returned the Bourbons, who, having forgotten nothing, 
 bethought themselves of the Saint Ampoule. Monsieur de 
 Chevrieres, magistrate at Kheims, set about the double work of 
 discovery and recovery. For some time he was unsuccessful. 
 At length, early in 1819, the three sons of the late Philippe 
 Hourelle waited on him. They made oath that not only were 
 they aware of a portion of the sacred ointment having been in the 
 keeping of their late father, but that his widow succeeded the 
 inheritance, and that she reckoned it as among her choicest 
 treasures. 
 
 " She has nothing to do but to make it over to me," said Mon- 
 sieur Chevrieres; "she will be accounted of in history as the 
 mother of the knights of the Ampoule of the Restoration." 
 
 " It is vexatious," said the eldest son, " but the treasure has been 
 
THE KNIGHTS OF THE " SAINTE AMPOULE." 197 
 
 lost. At the time of the invasion, our house was plundered, and 
 the relic wat the first thing the enemy laid his hands on." 
 
 The disappointment that ensued was only temporary. A judge 
 named Lecomte soon appeared, who made oath that he had in his 
 keeping a certain portion of what had at first been consigned to 
 the widow Hourelle. The portion was so small that it required 
 an eye of faith, very acute and ready indeed, to discern it. The 
 authorities looked upon the relic, and thought if Louis XVIII. 
 could not be crowned till a sufficient quantity of the holy ointment 
 was recovered wherewith to anoint him, the coronation was not 
 likely to be celebrated yet awhile. 
 
 Then arose a crowd of priests, monks, and ex-monks, all of 
 whom declared that the cure, M. Seraine, had imparted to them 
 the secret of his having preserved a portion of the dried anointing 
 oil, but they were unable to say where he had deposited it. Some 
 months of hesitation ensued, when, in summer, M. Boure, a priest 
 of Berry-au-Bac, came forward and proclaimed that he was the 
 depositary of the long-lost relic, and that he had preserved it in a 
 portion of the winding-sheet of St. Remy himself. A week later 
 M. Champagne Provotian appeared, and made deposition to the 
 following effect : He was standing near Rhull when the latter, in 
 October, 1793, destroyed the vial which had been brought from 
 Heaven by a dove, at the foot of the statue of Louis XV. When 
 the republican struck the vial, some fragments of the glass flew 
 on to the coat-sleeve of the said M. Champagne. These he dex- 
 terously preserved, took home with him, and now produced in 
 court. 
 
 A commission examined the various relics, and the fragments 
 of glass. The whole was pronounced genuine, and the chairman 
 thought that by process of putting " that and that together," there 
 was enough of legend, vial, and ointment to legitimately anoint 
 and satisfy any Christian king. 
 
 " There is nothing now to obstruct your majesty's coronation," 
 said his varlet to him one morning, after having spent three hours 
 in a service for which he hoped to be appointed one of the knights 
 of the Sainte Ampoule ; " there is now absolutely nothing to pre- 
 vent that august ceremony." 
 
 " Allons done !" said Louis XVIII. with that laugh of incredu- 
 
198 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 lity, that shrug of the shoulders, and that good-humored impatience 
 at legends and absurdities, which made the priests speak of him 
 as an infidel. 
 
 " What shall be done with the ointment ?" said the knight- 
 expectant. 
 
 " Lock it up in the vestry cupboard, and say no more about it." 
 And this was done with some ceremony and a feeling of disap- 
 pointment. The gathered relics, placed in a silver reliquary lined 
 with white silk, and enclosed in a metal case under three locks, 
 were deposited within the tomb of St. Remy. There it remained 
 till Charles X. was solemnly crowned in 1825. In that year, pos- 
 itively for the last time, the knights of the Sainte Ampoule were 
 solemnly created, and did their office. As soon as Charles entered 
 the choir, he knelt in the front of the altar. On rising, he was 
 led into the centre of the sanctuary, where a throned chair received 
 his august person. A splendid group half-encircled him; and 
 then approached the knights of tho Sainte Ampoule in grand pro- 
 cession, bearing all that was left of what the sacred dove did or 
 did not bring to St. Remy, for the anointing of Clovis. Not less 
 than three prelates, an archbishop and two bishops, received the 
 ointment from the hands of the knights, and carried it to the high 
 altar. Their excellencies and eminences may be said to have per- 
 formed their office with unction, but the people laughed alike at 
 the knights, the pomatum, and the ceremony, all of which combined 
 could not endow Charles X. with sense enough to keep his place. 
 The knights of the Sainte Ampoule may be said now to have lost 
 their occupation for ever. 
 
 Of all the memorabilia of Rheims, the good people there dwelt 
 upon none more strongly than the old and splendid procession of 
 these knights of the Sainte Ampoule. The coronation cortege 
 seemed only a subordinate point of the proceedings ; and the mag- 
 nificent canopy, upheld by the knights over the vial, on its way 
 from the abbey of St. Remy to the cathedral, excited as much 
 attention as the king's crown. 
 
 The proceedings, however, were not always of a peaceable 
 character. The Grand Prior of St. Remy was always the bearer 
 of the vial, in its case or shrine. It hung from his neck by a 
 golden chain, and he himself was mounted on a white horse. On 
 
THE KNIGHTS OF THE « SAINTE AMPOULE." 199 
 
 placing the vial in the hands of the archbishop, the latter pledged 
 himself by solemn oath to restore it at the conclusion of the cere* 
 mony ; and some half-dozen barons were given as hostages by way 
 of security. The procession back to the abbey, through the gayly 
 tapestried streets, was of equal splendor with that to the cathedral. 
 
 The horse on which the Grand Prior was mounted was fur- 
 nished by the government, but the Prior claimed it as the property 
 of the abbey as soon as he returned thither. This claim was dis- 
 puted by the inhabitants of Chine la Populeux, or as it is vulgarly 
 called, " Chene la Pouilleux." They founded their claim upon a 
 privilege granted to their ancestors. It appeared that in the olden 
 time, the English had taken Rheims, plundered the city, and rifled 
 the tomb of St. Remy, from which they carried off the Sainte 
 Ampoule. The inhabitants of Chene, however, had fallen upon 
 the invaders and recovered the inestimable treasure. From that 
 time, and in memory and acknowledgment of the deed, they had 
 enjoyed, as they said, the right to walk in the procession with the 
 knights of the Sainte. Ampoule, and had been permitted to claim 
 the horse ridden by the Grand Prior. The Prior and his people 
 called these claimants scurvy knaves, and would by no means 
 attach any credit to the story. At the coronation of Louis XIII. 
 they did not scruple to support their claim by violence. They 
 pulled the Prior from his horse, terribly thrashed the monks who 
 came to his assistance, tore the canopy to pieces, thwacked the 
 knights right lustily, and carried off the steed in triumph. The 
 respective parties immediately went to law, and spent the value of 
 a dozen steeds, in disputes about the possession of a single horse. 
 The contest was decided in favor of the religious community ; and 
 the turbulent people of Chene were compelled to lead the quad- 
 ruped back to the abbey stables. They renewed their old claim 
 subsequently, and again threatened violence, much to the delight 
 of the attorneys, who thought to make money by the dissension. 
 At the coronations of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. these sover- 
 eigns issued special decrees, whereby the people of Chene were 
 prohibited from" pretending to any property in the horse, and from 
 supporting any such pretensions by acts of violence. 
 
 The history of foreign orders would require a volume as large 
 as Anstis's ; but though I can not include such a history among 
 
200 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIK DAYS. 
 
 my gossiping details, I may mention a few curious incidents con- 
 nected with 
 
 THE OKDER OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 There is a singular circumstance connected with this order. It 
 was founded by the last of the Valois, and went out with the last 
 of the Bourbons. Louis Philippe had a particular aversion for 
 the orders which were most cherished by the dynasty he so clev- 
 erly supplanted. The Citizen King may be said to have put down 
 both " St. Louis" and the " Holy Ghost" cavaliers. He did not 
 abolish the orders by decree ; but it was clearly understood that no 
 one wearing the insignia would be welcome at the Tuileries. 
 
 The Order of the Holy Ghost was instituted by Henri, out of 
 gratitude for two events, for which no other individual had cause 
 to be grateful. He was (when Duke of Anjou) elected King of 
 Poland, on the day of Pentecost, 1573, and on the same day in 
 the following year he succeeded to the crown of France. Hence 
 the Order with its hundred members, and the king as grand 
 master. 
 
 St. Foix, in his voluminous history of the order, furnishes the 
 villanous royal founder with a tolerably good character. This is 
 more than any other historian has done ; and it is not very satis- 
 factorily executed by this historian himself. He rests upon the 
 principle that the character of a king, or his disposition rather, 
 may be judged by his favorites. He then points to La Marck, 
 Mangiron, Joyeuse, D'Epernon, and others. Their reputations are 
 not of the best, rather of the very worst ; but then St. Foix says 
 that they were all admirable swordsmen, and carried scars about 
 them, in front, in proof of their valor : he evidently thinks that the 
 bellica virtus is the same thing as the other virtues. 
 
 On the original roll of knights there are names now more worthy 
 of being remembered. Louis de Gonzague, Duke de Nevers, was 
 one of these. On one occasion, he unhorsed the Huguenot Captain 
 de Beaumont, who, as he lay on the ground, fired a pistol and 
 broke the ducal kneepan. The Duke's squire berJt forward with 
 his knife to despatch the Captain ; the Duke, however, told the 
 latter to rise. " I wish," said he, " that you may have a tale to 
 tell that is worth narrating. When you recount, at your fireside, 
 
THE KNIGHTS OF THE HOLY GHOST. 201 
 
 how you wounded the Duke de Nevers, be kind enough to add that 
 he gave you your life." The Duke was a noble fellow. Would 
 that his generosity could have restored his kneepan ! but he limped 
 to the end of his days. 
 
 But there was a nobler than he, in the person of the Baron 
 d'Assier, subsequently Count de Crussol and Duke d'Uzes. He 
 was a Huguenot, and I confess that I can not account for the fact 
 of his being, at any time of his life, a Knight of the Order of the 
 Holy Ghost. Henri III. was not likely to have conferred the in- 
 signia even on a pervert. His name, however, is on the roll. He 
 was brave, merciful, pious, and scrupulously honest. When he 
 captured Bergerai, he spared all who had no arms in their hands, 
 and finding the women locked up in the churches, he induced them 
 to return home, on promise of being protected from all molestation. 
 These poor creatures must have been marvellously fair ; and the 
 baron's eulogy on them reminds me of the expression of the soldiers 
 when they led Judith through the camp of Holofernes : " Who 
 could despise this people that have among them such women/' 
 
 The baron was not a little proud of his feat, and he thought that 
 if all the world talked of the continence of Scipio, he had a right 
 to claim some praise as the protector of female virtue. Accord- 
 ingly, in forwarding an account of the whole affair to the Due de 
 Montpensier, he forwarded also a few samples of the ladies. " I 
 have only chosen twenty of the handsomest of them," he writes, 
 " whom I have sent you that you may judge if they were not very 
 likely to tempt us to reprisals ; they will inform you that they have 
 suffered not the least dishonor." By sending them to Mont- 
 pensier's quarters the ladies were in great danger of incurring 
 that from which the Baron had saved them. But he winds up 
 with a small lecture. He writes to the Duke : " You are a 
 devotee [ ! J ; you have a ghostly father ; your table is always 
 filled with monks ; your hear two or three masses every day ; 
 and you go frequently to confession. / oonfess myself only to 
 God. I hear no masses. I have none but soldiers at my table. 
 Honor is the sole director of my conscience. It will never advise 
 me to order violence against woman, to put to death a defenceless 
 enemy, or to break a promise once given." In this lecture, there 
 was, in fact, a double-handed blow. Two birds were killed with 
 
202 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 one stone. The Baron censured, by implication, both the Duke 
 and his religion. I was reminded of him by reading a review in 
 the " Guardian," where the same skilful method is applied to criti- 
 cism. The reviewer's subject was Canon Wordsworth's volume 
 on Chevalier Bunsen's " Hippolytus." " The canon's book," said 
 the reviewer (I am quoting from memory), "reminds us — and it 
 must be a humiliation and degradation to an intelligent, educated, 
 and thoughtful man — of one of Dr. Cumming's Exeter Hall lec- 
 tures." Here the ultra high church critic stunned, with one blow, 
 the merely high-church priest and the no-church presbyterian. 
 
 There was generosity, at least, in another knight of this order, 
 Francis Goaffier, Lord of Crevecoeur. Catherine of Medicis an- 
 nounced to him the appointment of his son to the command of a 
 regiment of foot. " Madame," said the Knight of the Holy Ghost, 
 " my son was beset, a night or two ago, by live assassins ; a Cap- 
 tain La Vergne drew in his defence, and slew two of the assailants. 
 The rest fled, disabled. If your majesty will confer the regiment 
 on one who deserves it, you will give it to La Vergne." — " Be it 
 so," said Catherine, " and your son shall not be the less well pro- 
 vided for." 
 
 One, at least, of the original knights of this order was famous 
 for his misfortunes ; this was Charles de Hallewin, Lord of Piennes. 
 He had been in six-and-twenty sieges and battles, and never came 
 out of one unscathed. His domestic wounds were greater still. 
 He had five sons, and one daughter who was married. The whole 
 of them, with his son-in-law, were assassinated, or died accidental- 
 ly, by violent deaths. The old chevalier went down to his tomb 
 heart-broken and heirless. 
 
 Le Eoi, Lord of Chavigny, and who must not be mistaken for 
 an ancestor of that Le Koi who died at the Alma under the title 
 of Marshal St. Arnaud, is a good illustration of the blunt, honest 
 knight. Charles IX. once remarked to him that his mother, Cath- 
 erine de Medicis, boasted that there was not a man in France, 
 with ten thousand livres a year, at whose hearth she had not a spy 
 in her pay. " I do not know," said Le Roi, " whether tyrants 
 make spies, or spies tyrants. For my own part, I see no use in 
 them, except in war." 
 
 For honesty of a still higher sort, commend me to Scipio de 
 
THE KNIGHTS OF THE HOLY GHOST. 203 
 
 Fierques, Lord of Lavagne. Catherine de Medicis offered to make 
 this, her distant relative, a marshal of France. " Good Heavens, 
 Madame !" he exclaimed, " the world would laugh at both of us. 
 I am simply a brave gentleman, and deserve that reputation ; but 
 I should perhaps lose it, were you to make a marshal of me." The 
 dignity is taken with less reluctance in our days. It was this hon- 
 est knight who was asked to procure the appointment of queen's 
 chaplain for a person who, by way of bribe, presented the gallant 
 Scipio with two documents which would enable him to win a law- 
 suit he was then cariying on against an obstinate adversary. 
 Scipio perused the documents, saw that they proved his antagonist 
 to be in the right, and immediately withdrew his opposition. He 
 left the candidate for the queen's chaplaincy to accomplish the ob- 
 ject he had in view, in the best way he might. 
 
 There was wit, too, as might be expected, among these knights. 
 John Blosset, Baron de Torci, affords us an illustration. He had 
 been accused of holding correspondence with the enemy in Spain, 
 and report said that he was unworthy of the Order of the Holy 
 Ghost. He proved his innocence before a chapter of the order. 
 At the end of the investigation, he wittily applied two passages 
 from the prayer-book of the knights, by turning to the king, and 
 saying, " Domine ne projicias me a facie tua, et spiritum sanctum 
 tnum ne auferas a me." " Lord, cast me out from thy presence, 
 and take not thy ' Holy Spirit' from me." And the king bade 
 him keep it, while he laughed at the rather profane wit of John 
 Blosset. 
 
 There was wit, too, of a more practical nature, among these 
 knights of the Holy Spirit. The royal founder used occasionally 
 to retire with the knights to Vincennes. There they shut them- 
 selves up, as they said, to fast and repent ; but, as the world said, 
 to indulge in pleasures of a very monster-like quality. The royal 
 dukes of a later period in France used to atone for inordinate vice 
 by making their mistresses fast ; the royal duchesses settled their 
 little balance with Heaven, by making their servants fast. It ap- 
 pears that there was nothing of this vicarious penance in the case 
 of Henri III. and his knights. Not that all the knights willingly 
 submitted to penance which mortified their appetites. Charles de 
 la Marck, Count of Braine, was one of those impatient penitents. 
 
204 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 On a day on which rigid abstinence had been enjoined, the king 
 was passing by the count's apartment, when he was struck by a 
 savory smell. King as he was, he immediately applied his eye to 
 the keyhole of the count's door, and beheld the knight blowing 
 lustily at a little fire under a chafing-dish, in which there were two 
 superb soles frying in savory sauce. " Brother knight, brother 
 knight," exclaimed Henri, " I see all and smell much. Art thou 
 not ashamed thus to transgress the holy rule?" — "I should be 
 much more so," said the count, opening the door, " if I made an 
 enemy of my stomach. I can bear this sort of abstinence no long- 
 er. Here am I, knight and gentleman, doubly famished in that 
 double character, and I have been, in my own proper person, to 
 buy these soles, and purchase what was necessary for the most de- 
 licious of sauces : I am cooking them myself, and they are now 
 done to a turn. Cooked aax gratins, your majesty yourself can 
 not surely resist tasting. Allow me" — and he pushed forward a 
 chair, in which Henri seated himself, and to the " soles aux 
 gratins," such as Vefour and Very never dished up, the monarch 
 sat down, and with the hungry count, discussed the merits of fast- 
 ing, while they enjoyed the fish. It was but meagre fare after all; 
 and probably the repast did not conclude there. 
 
 Charity is illustrated in the valiant William Pot (a very ancient 
 name of a very ancient family, of which the late archdeacon of 
 Middlesex and vicar of Kensington was probably a descendant). 
 He applied a legacy of sixty thousand livres to the support of 
 wounded soldiers. Henri III., who was always intending to ac- 
 complish some good deed, resolved to erect an asylum for infirm 
 military men ; but, of course, he forgot it. Henri IV., who has 
 received a great deal more praise than he deserves, also expressed 
 his intention to do something for his old soldiers ; but he was too 
 much taken up with the fair Gabrielle, and she was not like Nell 
 Gwynne, who turned her intimacy with a king to the profit of the 
 men who poured out their blood for him. The old soldiers were 
 again neglected ; and it was not till the reign of Louis XIV. that 
 Pot's example was again recalled to mind, and profitable action 
 adopted in consequence. When I think of the gallant Pot's leg- 
 acy, what he did therewith, and how French soldiers benefited 
 thereby, I am inclined to believe that the German troops, less well • 
 
THE KNIGHTS OF THE HOLY GHOST. 205 
 
 cared for, may thence have derived their once favorite oath, and 
 that Potz tausend! may have some reference to the sixty thousand 
 livres which the compassionate knight of Rhodes and the Holy 
 Ghost devoted to the comfort and solace of the brave men who 
 had been illustriously maimed in war. 
 
 The kings of France were accustomed to create a batch of 
 knights of the Holy Ghost, on the day following that of the coro- 
 nation, when the monarchs became sovereign heads of the order. 
 The entire body subsequently repaired from the Cathedral to the 
 Church of St. Renii, in grand equestrian procession, known as the 
 " cavalcade." Nothing could well exceed the splendor of this pro- 
 cession, when kings were despotic in France, and funds easily 
 provided. Cavalry and infantry in state uniforms, saucy pages in 
 a nutter of feathers and ribands, and groups of gorgeous officials 
 preceded the marshals of France, who were followed by the knights 
 of the Holy Ghost, after whom rode their royal Grand Master, 
 glittering like an Eastern king, and nodding, as he rode, like a 
 Mandarin. 
 
 The king and the knights performed their devotions before the 
 shrine of Saint Marcoul, which was brought expressly from the 
 church of Corbeni, six leagues distance from Rheims. This par- 
 ticular ceremony was in honor of the celebrated old abbot of Nan- 
 tua, who, in his lifetime, had been eminently famous for his success 
 in curing the scrofulous disorder called " the king's evil." After 
 this devotional service, the sovereign master of the order of the 
 Holy Ghost was deemed qualified to cure the evil himself. Ac- 
 cordingly, decked with the mantle and collar of the order, and 
 half encircled by the knights, he repaired to the Abbey Park to 
 touch and cure those who were afflicted with the disease in ques- 
 tion. It was no little labor. When Louis XVI. performed the 
 ceremony, he touched two thousand four hundred persons. The 
 form of proceeding was singular enough. The king's first phy- 
 sician placed his hand on the head of the patient ; upon which a 
 captain of the guard immediately seized and held the patient's 
 hands closely joined together. The king then advanced, head un- 
 covered, with his knights, and touched the sufferers. He passed 
 his right hand from the forehead to the chin, and from one cheek 
 to the other ; thus making the sign of the cross, and at the same 
 
206 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 time pronouncing the words, "May God cure thee; the king 
 touches thee !" 
 
 In connection with this subject, I may add here that Evelyn, in 
 his diary, records that Charles II. " began first to touch for the 
 evil, according to custom," on the 6th of July, 1660, and after this 
 fashion. " His Majesty sitting under his state in the Banqueting 
 House, the chirurgeons caused the sick to be brought, and led up 
 to the throne, where they kneeling, the king strokes their faces or 
 cheeks with both his hands at once, at which instant a chaplain, in 
 his formalities, says, ' He put his hands upon them, and He healed 
 them.' This is said to every one in particular. When they have 
 been all touched, they come up again in the same order, and 
 the other chaplain kneeling, and having angel-gold strung on white 
 riband on his arm, delivers them one by one to his Majesty, who 
 puts them about the necks of the touched as they pass, while the 
 first chaplain repeats, < That is the true light who came into the 
 world.' " The French ceremonial seems to me to have been the 
 less pretentious ; for the words uttered by the royal head of the 
 order of the Holy Ghost, simply formed a prayer, and an assertion 
 of a fact : " May God heal thee ; the king touches thee !" And 
 yet who can doubt the efficacy of the royal hand of Charles II., 
 seeing that, at a single touch, he not only cured a scrofulous Qua- 
 ker, but converted him into a good churchman ? 
 
 The history of the last individual knight given in these imper- 
 fect pages (Guy of "Warwick), showed how history and romance 
 wove themselves together in biography. Coming down to a later 
 period, we may find another individual history, that may serve to 
 illustrate the object I have in view. The Chevalier de Bayard 
 stands prominently forward. But there was before his time, a 
 knight who was saluted by nearly the same distinctive titles which 
 were awarded to Bayard. I allude to Jacques de Lelaing, known 
 as " the knight without fear and without doubt." His history is 
 less familiar to us, and will, therefore, the better bear telling. Be- 
 sides, Bayard was but a butcher. If he is not to be so accounted, 
 then tell us, gentle shade of Don Alonzo di Sotomayor, why thy 
 painful spirit perambulates the groves of Elysium, with a scented 
 handkerchief alternately applied to the hole in thy throat and the 
 gash in thy face? Is it not that, with cruel subtlety of fence 
 
THE KNIGHTS OF THE HOLY GHOST. 207 
 
 Bayard run his rapier into thy neck " four good finger-breadths," 
 and when thou wast past resistance, did he not thrust his dagger 
 into thy nostrils, crying the while, " Yield thee, Signor Alonzo, or 
 thou diest !" The shade of the slashed Spaniard bows its head in 
 mournful acquiescence, and a faint sound seems to float to us upon 
 the air, out of which we distinguish an echo of " The field of 
 Monervyne" 
 
208 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 JACQUES DE LELAING, 
 
 THE GOOD KNIGHT WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT DOUBT. 
 
 "Faites silence; je vais parler de ltd!" — Boileau. 
 
 Between the city of Nanmr and the quaint old town of Dinant 
 there is as much matter of interest for the historian as of beauty 
 for the traveller and artist. War has been the most terrible 
 scourge of the two localities on the Meuse which I have just 
 named. Naniur has a present reputation for cutlery, and an old 
 one for " slashing blades" of another description. Don John, the 
 great victor at Lepanto, lies entombed in the city, victim of the 
 poison and the jealousy of his brother Philip. There the great 
 Louis proved himself a better soldier than Boileau did a poet, 
 when he attempted to put the royal soldier's deeds into rhyme. 
 Who, too, can stand at St. Nicholas's gate, without thinking of 
 " my uncle Toby," and the Frenchmen, for whose dying he cared 
 so little, on the glacis of Namur ? At present the place, it is true, 
 has but a dull and dreamy aspect. Indeed, it may be said of the 
 inhabitants, as of Molly Carew's lovers, that " It's dhrames and 
 not sleep that comes into their heads." Such, at least, would seem 
 to be the case, if I may draw a conclusion from what I saw during 
 the last summer, at the bookseller's stall at the Namur station, 
 where I found more copies of a work professing to interpret 
 dreams than of any other production, whether grave or gaillard. 
 
 Dinant, a curious old town, the high limestone-rocks behind 
 which seems to be pushing it from off its narrow standing-ground 
 into the Meuse, has even bloodier reminiscences than Namur ; but 
 of these I will not now speak. Between the two cities, at the 
 most picturesque part of the stream, and on the loftiest cliff which 
 rises above the stream, is the vast ruin of the old titanic castle of 
 Foilvache, the once rather noisy home of the turbulent household 
 
JACQUES DE LELAING. 209 
 
 of those terrible brothers, known in chivalrous history as the 
 " Four Sons of Aymon." During one of the few fine evenings 
 of the last summer, I was looking up at this height, from the op- 
 posite bank, while around me stood in groups a number of those 
 brilliant-eyed, soft-voiced, ready-witted Walloons, who are said to 
 be the descendants of a Roman legion, whose members colonized 
 the country and married the ladies in it ! A Walloon priest, or 
 one at least who spoke the dialect perfectly, but who had a strong 
 Flemish accent when addressing to me an observation in French, 
 remained during the period of my observation close at my side. 
 " Are these people," said I to him, " a contented people ?" He 
 beckoned to a cheerful-looking old man, and assuming that he was 
 contented with the dispensation that had appointed him to be a 
 laborer, inquired of him which part of his labor he loved best ? 
 After pausing for a minute, the old peasant replied in very fair 
 French, " I think the sweetest task I have is when I mow that 
 meadow up at Bloquemont yonder, for the wild thyme in it em- 
 balms the very air." " But your winter-time," said I, " must be 
 a dark and dreary time." " Neither dark nor dreary/' was the 
 remark of a tidy woman, his wife, who was, at the moment, on her 
 knees, sewing up the ragged rents in the gaberdine of a Walloon 
 beggar — "Neither dark nor dreary. In winter-time, at home, 
 we don't want light to get the children about us to teach them 
 their catechism." The priest smiled. "And as for spring-time," 
 said her husband, " you should be here to enjoy it ; for the fields 
 are then all flower, and the sky is one song." " There is poetry 
 in their expressions," said I to the priest. " There is better than 
 that," said he, " there is love in their hearts ;" and, turning to 
 the woman who was mending the raiment of the passive mendi- 
 cant, he asked her if she were not afraid of infection. " Why 
 should I fear ?" was her remark. " I am doing but little ; Christ 
 did more ; He washed the feet of beggars ; and we must risk 
 something, if we would gain Paradise." The particular beggar 
 to whom she was thus extending most practical charity was by no 
 means a picturesque bedesman ; but, not to be behind-hand in 
 %api<; toward him, I expressed compassion for his lot. " My lot 
 is not so deplorable," said he, uncovering his head ; " I have God 
 for my hope, and the charity of humane people for my succor." 
 
 14 
 
210 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 As he said this, my eye turned from him to a shepherd who had 
 just joined our group, and who was waiting to be ferried over to 
 the little village of Houx. I knew him by name, and knew 
 something of the solitariness of his life, and I observed to him, 
 " Jacques, you, at least, have a dull life of it ; and you even now 
 look weary with the long hours you have been spending alone." 
 " Alone !" he exclaimed, in a joyful tone, " I am never alone, and 
 never weary. How should I be either, when my days are passed 
 in the company of innocent animals, and time is given me to 
 think of God !" The priest smiled even more approvingly than 
 before ; and I remarked to him, " We are here in Arcadia." 
 " But not without human sin," said he, and pointing to a woman at 
 a distance, who was in the employ of the farmer's wife, he asked 
 the latter how she could still have anything to do with a well- 
 known thief. " Eh, father," was the comment of a woman whom 
 John Howard would have kissed, " starving her in idleness would 
 not cure her of pilfering ; and between working and being well- 
 watched, she will soon leave her evil habits." " You are a good 
 Christian," I said to her, " be you of what community you may." 
 " She is a good Catholic," added the priest. " I am what the good 
 God has made me," was the simple reply of the Walloon wife ; 
 " and my religion is this to go on my knees when all the house is 
 asleep, and then pray for the whole world." "Ay, ay," was the 
 chorus of those around her, " that is true religion." " It is a part 
 of true religion," interposed the priest ; but I could not help think- 
 ing that he would have done as well had he left Marie Justine's 
 text without his comment. We walked together down to the bank 
 of the river opposite the Chateau of the young Count de Levig- 
 non the proprietor and burgomaster of Houx. I looked up from 
 the modern chateau to the ruins of the vast castle where the sons 
 of Aymon once held barbaric state, maintained continual war, and 
 affected a reverence for the mother of Him who was the Prince 
 of Peace. The good priest seemed to guess my thoughts, for he 
 remarked, " We live now in better times ; the church is less splen- 
 did, and chivalry less ' glorious,' if not extinct ; but there is a 
 closer brotherhood of all men — at least," he added hesitatingly — 
 " at least I hope so." " I can not remember," said I, " a single 
 virtue possessed by either Aymon or his sons, except brute courage, 
 
JACQUES DE LELAING. 211 
 
 and a rude sort of generosity, not based on principle, but born of 
 impulse. It is a pity that Belgium can not boast of more perfect 
 chevaliers than the old proprietors of Poilvache, and that you 
 have not a hero to match with Bayard." " Belgium," was his 
 answer, " can make such boast, and had a hero who had finished 
 his heroic career long before Bayard was born. Have you never 
 heard of ' the Good Knight without fear and without doubt' ?" 
 " I have heard of one without fear and without reproach." " That 
 title," he remarked, " was but a plagiarism from that conferred on 
 Jacques de Lelaing, by his contemporaries." And then he sketched 
 the outline of the good knight's career, and directed me to sources 
 where I might gather more detailed intelligence. I was interested 
 in what I learned, and it is because I hope also to interest readers 
 at home, that I venture to place before them, however imperfectly 
 rendered, a sketch of the career of a brave man before the time 
 of Bayard; one who illustrates the old saying that — 
 
 " Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona." 
 
 Jaques de Lelaing, the good knight, without fear and without 
 doubt, was born in the chateau of Lelaing, in the first quarter of 
 the fifteenth century. The precise year is not known, but it was 
 full half a century before the birth of Bayard. He came of a 
 noble race ; that is, of a race, the male portion of which saw more 
 honor in slaughter than in science. His mother was celebrated 
 for her beauty as well as nobility. She was wise, courteous, and 
 debonnaire ; well-mannered, and full of all good virtues. So, at 
 least, in nearly similar terms, wrote George Chastellan of her, just 
 two centuries ago. 
 
 Jacques de Lelaing was as precocious a boy as the Duke of 
 Wharton in his youth. At the age of seven, a priestly tutor had 
 perfected him in French and Latin, and the good man had so im- 
 bued him with literary tastes that, in after life, the good knight 
 found time to cultivate the acquaintance of Captain Pen, as well 
 as of Captain Sword ; and specimens of his handiwork are yet 
 said to exist in the libraries of Flanders and Brabant. 
 
 Jacques, however, was never a mere student, " sicklied o'er with 
 the pale cast of thought." He loved manly sports ; and he was 
 yet but a blooming youth when the " demoiseau of Cleves," nephew 
 
212 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 of that great Duke whom men, for no earthly reason, called Philip 
 the Good, carried off his young friend from the castle of Lelaing, 
 and made of him a squire, not of dames, but of knights, in the 
 turbulent court of the ducal Philip, with the benevolent qualifica- 
 tion to his name. 
 
 The youth entered upon his career with a paternal provision 
 which bespoke at once the liberality and the wisdom of his father, 
 stout William de Lelaing. The sire bestowed upon his son four 
 splendid horses, a well-skilled groom, and a "gentleman of ser- 
 vice" which, in common phrase, means a valet, or " gentleman's 
 gentleman." But the young soldier had more than this in his 
 brain ; namely, a well-lettered cleric, commissioned to be for ever 
 expounding and instructing, with a special object, to boot, that 
 Jacques should not forget his Latin ! Excellent sire thus to care 
 for his son ! If modern fathers only might send into barracks with 
 their sons, when the latter first join their regiments, reverend 
 clerks, whose office it should be to keep their pupils well up in 
 their catechism, the Eton grammar, and English orthography, 
 what a blessing it would be to the young gentlemen and to all 
 acquainted with them ! As it is, we have officers worse instructed 
 and less intelligent than the sons of the artists who make their 
 uniforms. 
 
 When Jacques went forth into the world, his sire gave him as 
 good advice as Polonius threw away on his son Laertes. The sum 
 of it was according to the old French maxim, " Noblesse oblige" — 
 " Inasmuch," said the old man, " as you are more noble than others 
 by birth, so," said he, " should you be more noble than they by 
 virtues." The hearty old father added an assurance, that " few 
 great men gained renown for prowess and virtue who did not 
 entertain love for some dame or damoislle." This last, however, 
 was but an equivocal assurance, for by counselling Jacques to fall 
 in love with " some dame or damoiselle," he simply advised him 
 to do so with any man's wife or daughter. But it was advice com- 
 monly given to young gentlemen in arms, and is, to this day, com- 
 monly followed by them. Jacques bettered the paternal instruction, 
 by falling in love with two ladies at the same time. As ambitious 
 youths are wont to do, he passed by the white and pink young 
 ladies whom he met, and paid his addresses, with remarkable sue- 
 
JACQUES DE LELAING. 218 
 
 cess, to two married duchesses. Neither of these suspected that 
 the smooth-chinned young u squire" was swearing eternal fidelity 
 to the other, or that this light-mailed Macheath wooed his madiae- 
 val Polly with his pockets full of " favors," just bestowed on him 
 by an unsuspecting Lucy. Thus has love ever been made by offi- 
 cers and highwaymen. 
 
 But if Jacques loved two, there was not a lady at the Court of 
 Burgundy who did not love him. The most virtuous of them 
 sighingly expressed a wish that their husbands, or their lovers, 
 were only like him. The men hated him, while they affected to 
 admire his grace, his bearing, and his irresistible bravery. Jacques 
 very complacently accepted the love of the women and the envy 
 of the men ; and feeling that he had something to be thankful for, 
 he repaired to the shrine of the Virgin at Hal, and thanked " Our 
 Lady," accordingly. . 
 
 Now Philip the Good was good only just as Nicholas the Czar 
 was " good." He had a fair face and a black heart. Philip, like 
 Nicholas, joined an outward display of conjugal decency with some 
 private but very crapulous indecency ; and the Duke, like the 
 Czar, was the appalling liar of his day. Philip had increased the 
 ducal territory of Burgundy by such means as secured Finland to 
 Muscovy, by treachery of the most fiendish quality; and in 1442, 
 affecting to think that Luxembourg was in the sick condition 
 which Nicholas described as the condition of Turkey — when the 
 imperial felon thought he was making a confederate of Sir Hamil- 
 ton Seymour, the Duke resolved to seize on the territory in ques- 
 tion, and young Jacques de Lelaing was in an ecstacy of delight at 
 being permitted to join in this most rascally of expeditions. 
 
 Within a year, desolation was spread throughout a wide district. 
 Fire and sword did their devastating work, and the earth was 
 swept of the crops, dwellings, and human beings, which lay be- 
 tween the invaders and Luxembourg. The city was ultimately 
 taken by surprise, and the good Philip delivered it up to pillage ; 
 then ensued a* scene which hell itself could not equal; and the 
 Duke and his followers having enacted horrors from which devils 
 would have recoiled, they returned to Brussels, where they were 
 received with ten times more delight than if they had come back 
 
214 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 from an expedition which had been undertaken for the benefit of 
 humanity. 
 
 "What was called peace now followed, and Jacques de Lelaing, 
 having fleshed his maiden sword, and gained the praise of brave 
 men, and the love of fair women, resolved to commence a series 
 of provincial excursions for his own especial benefit. As, in mod- 
 em times, professors without scholars, and actors without engage- 
 ments, wander from town to town, and give lectures at " the King's 
 Arms," so Jacques de Lelaing went forth upon his way, offering 
 to fight all comers, in presence of kings themselves. 
 
 His first appearance on this provincial tour was at Xancy, in 
 1445, where a brilliant French Court was holding joyous festival 
 while awaiting the coming of Suffolk, who was commissioned to 
 escort to England a royal bride, in the person of Margaret of 
 Anjou. The French knights made light of the soldier of Burgun- 
 dy ; but Jacques, when announcing that he was the holder of the 
 tournament, added that no French knight should unhorse him, un- 
 less God and his good lady decreed otherwise. 
 
 The latter was not likely, and he felt himself secure, doubly so, 
 for he rode into the lists decorated with favors, gold embroidery, 
 and rich jewels, the gifts of the Duchesses of Orleans and Calabria, 
 each of whom fondly believed that she was the sole fair one by 
 whose bright eyes Jacques de Lelaing swore his prettiest oath. 
 Accordingly, there was not a cavalier who rode against him in that 
 passage of arms, who left the field otherwise than with broken or 
 bruised bones. " What manner of man will this be ?" cried they, 
 " if, even as a lad, he lays on so lustily ?" 
 
 The lad, at the subsequent banquet, to which he was borne in 
 triumph, again proved that he had the capacity of a man. He 
 was fresh as a rose just blown ; gay as a lark in early spring. 
 The queens of France and Sicily conversed with him by the half 
 hour, while ladies of lower degree gazed at him till they sighed ; 
 and sighed, knowing full well why, and caring very much, where- 
 fore. Charles VH. too, treated him with especial distinction, and 
 conferred on him the rich prizes he had won as victor in the rough 
 tourney of the day. But there were other guerdons awarded him 
 that night, which he more highly prized. Jacques visited the 
 Duchess of Orleans in her bower, and carried away with him, on 
 
JACQUES DE LELAING. 215 
 
 leaving, the richest diamond she had to bestow. He then passed 
 to the pavilion of the Duchess of Calabria, a lady who, among 
 other gifts willingly made by her, placed upon his finger a brilliant 
 ruby set in a gorgeous gold ring. He went to his own bed that 
 night as impudently happy as a modern Lifeguardsman who is 
 successfully fooling two ladies' maids. His cleric had left him, 
 and Jacques had ceased to care for the keeping-up of his Latin, 
 except, perhaps, the conjugation of the imperative mood of amo. 
 " Amemus," let us love, was the favorite part of the mood, and the 
 most frequently repeated by him and his brace of duchesses. 
 
 Sometime after this very successful first appearance, and toward 
 the end of 1445, our doughty squire was traversing the cathedral 
 of Notre Dame of Antwerp, and was on the point of cursing the 
 singers for their bad voices, just as one might be almost justified 
 in doing now, so execrable are they; he was there and thus en- 
 gaged, when a Sicilian knight, named Bonifazio, came jingling his 
 spurs along the transept, and looking jauntingly and impertinently 
 as he passed by. Jacques looked boldly at this " pretty fellow" of 
 the time, and remarked that he wore a golden fetter ring on his 
 left leg, held up by a chain of the same metal fastened to a circlet 
 above his knee. His shield bore the device, " Who has fair lady, 
 let him look to her well!" "It's an impertinent device," said 
 Jacques, touching the shield, by way of token that he would fight 
 the bearer for carrying it. " Thou art but a poor squire, albeit a 
 bold man," said the Sicilian, with the air of one who was half in- 
 clined to chastise the Hainaulter for his insolence. Toison d'Or, 
 the herald, whispered in the ear of the Hainaulter ; thereupon, 
 Jacques exclaimed, " If my master, Duke Philip, will give me 
 permission to fight, thou darest not deny me, on his Grace's terri- 
 tory." Bonifazio bowed by way of assent. The permission was 
 gained, and the encounter came off at Ghent. The first day's 
 combat was a species of preliminary struggle on horseback, in 
 which Jacques showed himself so worthy of the spurs he did not 
 yet wear, that Philip fastened them to his heels the next day, and 
 dubbed him Knight in solemn form. As the combatants strode 
 into the lists, on the second day, the Duke of Orleans remarked to 
 his Duchess, that Jacques was not so " gent as the Sicilian." The 
 Duchess smiled, as Guinever smiled when she looked on Sir 
 
216 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Launcelot, while her husband, King Arthur, commented upon him ; 
 and she said, in phrase known to all who read Spenser, " he loves 
 a lady gent;" and she added, with more of the smile and less of 
 the blush, " he is a better man than the Sicilian, and, to my think- 
 ing, he will this day prove it." 
 
 " We shall see," remarked the Duke carelessly. 
 
 " We shall see," re-echoed the Duchess, with the sunniest of 
 smiles. 
 
 Jacques, like the chivalric " gent" that he was, did honor to the 
 testimony of the Duchess. The combatants went at it, like stout 
 men. Jacques belabored his antagonist with a staff, the Sicilian 
 answered by thrusting a javelin at his adversary's uncovered face. 
 They then flung away their arms and their shields, and hewed at 
 each other with their battle-axes. Having spoiled the edges of 
 these, and loosened them from their handles, by battering at each 
 other's skulls, they finally drew their lusty and well-tempered 
 swords, and fought so fiercely that the gleaming of their swiftly 
 manoeuvred blades made them seem as if they were smiting each 
 other with lightning. Jacques had well-nigh dealt a mortal thrust 
 at the Sicilian, when, at the intervention of the Duke of Orleans, 
 Philip the Good flung his truncheon into the lists, and so saved 
 the foreign knight, by ending the fray. The Duchess reproved 
 her consort for being over-intrusive, but she smiled more gleesomely 
 than before. " Whither away, Sir Jacques ?" asked she, as the 
 latter modestly bowed on passing her — the multitude the while 
 rending the welkin with their approving shout. " To the chapel 
 in the wood," replied Jacques, " to render thanks for the aid vouch- 
 safed to me by our Lady." " Marry," murmured the Duchess, 
 " we will be there too." She thought it not less edifying to see 
 knight at his devotions than at beholding him in the duello. " I 
 am grateful to the Lady of Good Succor," said Jacques. " And 
 thou doest right loyally," was the comment of the Duchess. 
 
 The victory of the Belgian cavalier over the Sicilian gained for 
 him the distinctive name which he never lost, that of " the Good 
 Knight." To maintain it, he proceeded to travel from court to court, 
 as pugilists itinerate it from fair to fair, to exhibit prowess and to 
 gather praise. The minor pugilist looks to pence as well as praise, 
 and the ancient knight had an eye to profit also — he invariably 
 
JACQUES DE LELAING. 217 
 
 carried off the horse, armor, and jewels of the vanquished. As 
 Sir Jacques deemed himself invincible, he looked to the realization 
 of a lucrative tour. " Go on thy way, with God's blessing," ex- 
 claimed his sire. " Go on thy way, Jacques," murmured his 
 mother through her tears ; " thou wilt find ointment in thy valise, 
 to cure all bruises. Heaven send thee a surgeon, and thou break 
 thy bones." 
 
 Across the French frontier merrily rode Sir Jacques, followed 
 by his squire, and attended by his page. From his left arm hung 
 a splendidly-wrought helmet, by a chain of gold — the prize offered 
 by him to any one who could overcome him in single combat. 
 Jacques announced that, in addition, he would give a diamond to 
 any lady or demoiselle indicated to him by his conqueror. He 
 stipulated that whichever combatant first dropped his axe, he should 
 bestow a bracelet upon his adversary ; and Jacques would only 
 fight upon the condition that neither knight should be fastened in 
 his saddle — a regulation which I should never think of seeing in- 
 sisted upon anywhere, except by equestrian aldermen when they 
 amble on Mr. Batty's horses, to meet the Sovereign at Temple 
 Bar. For the rest Jacques put his trust in God, and relied upon 
 the strength given him in the love of " the fair lady who had more 
 power over him than aught besides throughout the entire world." 
 A hundred ladies fair, matrons and maids, who heard of this well- 
 advertised confidence, did not hesitate to exclaim, " Delicious fel- 
 low ! He means me /" 
 
 It was the proud boast of Jacques, that he traversed the capital, 
 and the provincial cities of France, without meeting with a knight 
 who would accept his defiance. It would be more correct to say 
 — a knight who could take up his challenge. Charles VII. for- 
 bade his chivalry from encountering the fierce Hainaulter any- 
 where but at the festive board. In the South of France, then held 
 by the English, he met with the same civility ; and he rode fairly 
 into Spain, his lance in rest, before his onward career was checked 
 by the presence of an adversary. That adversary was Don Diego 
 de Guzman, Grand-master of Calatrava, and, although he knew it 
 not, ancestor to a future Empress of the French. The Don met 
 the Belgian on the borders of Castile, and accepted his published 
 challenge out of mere love, as the one silly fellow said of the other, 
 
218 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 out of mere love for his " tres aimee dame." The " dames" of those 
 days enjoyed nothing so much as seeing the gentlemen thwack 
 each other ; and considering what a worthless set these latter, for 
 the most part, were, the ladies had logically comic reasons to sup- 
 port their argument. 
 
 It was necessary, however, for Don Diego to obtain the consent 
 of his sovereign to encounter in mortal combat a knight of the 
 household of Burgundy, then in alliance with Spain. The Sover- 
 eign was absent from the country, and while an answer was being 
 expected from him to the application duly made, Jacques, at the 
 head of a most splendid retinue, trotted leisurely into Portugal, to 
 tempt the Lusitanian knights to set their lances against him. He 
 rode forward to the capital, and was greeted by the way, as if he 
 had been as illustrious a monarch as his ducal master. It was one 
 ovation, from the frontier to Lisbon, where he was welcomed by 
 the most crowded of royal balls, at which the King (Alphonso 
 XV.) invited him to foot it with the Queen. The King, however, 
 was but an indifferent master of the ceremonies. The late Mr. 
 Simpson of Vauxhall, or the illustrious Baron Nathan of Eosher- 
 ville, would never have dreamed of taking the lady to introduce 
 her to the gentleman. This uncourteous process was, however, 
 the one followed by Alphonso, who taking his consort by the hand, 
 led her to Sire Jacques, and bad him tread a measure with her. 
 Messire Jacques consented, and there was more than enough of 
 dancing, and feasting, and pleasure-seeking, but no fighting. Lis- 
 bon was as dull to the Belgian as Donnybrook Fair without a 
 skrimmage used to be to all its lively habitues. " I have had a 
 turn with the Queen," said Jacques, " let me now have a tourney 
 with your captains." " Burgundy is my good friend," answered 
 the King — and he was right in a double sense, for Burgundy was 
 as dear to him as Champagne is to the Czar's valet, Frederick 
 William, who resides at Berlin. " Burgundy is our good friend," 
 answered Alphonso, " and Heaven forbid that a knight from such 
 a court should be roughly treated by any knights at mine." " By 
 St. George ! I defy them !" exclaimed Jacques. " And even so 
 let it rest," said the monarch ; " ride back to Castile, and do thy 
 worst upon the hard ribs of the Guzman." Jacques adopted the 
 suggestion ; and on the 3d of February, 1 447, there was not a 
 
JACQUES DE LELAING. 219 
 
 bed in Valladolid to be had "for love or money ;" so crowded was 
 that strong-smelling city with stronger-smelling Spaniards, whose 
 curiosity was even stronger than the odors they distilled, to wit- 
 ness the " set-to" between the Belgian Chicken and the Castile 
 Shaver ! 
 
 I will not detail the preliminary ceremonies, the processions to 
 the field, the entry of the sovereigns, the fluttering of the ladies, 
 the excitement of the knights, and the eagerness of the countless 
 multitude. Jacques was on the ground by ten o'clock, where 
 Guzman kept him waiting till three ; and then the latter came 
 with an axe so much longer than that wielded by the Belgian, that 
 even the Spanish umpires forbade its being employed. Don 
 Diego's own " godfather" for the occasion was almost minded to 
 thump him with the handle ; and there was all the trouble in the 
 world to induce him to select another. This being effected, each 
 knight was conducted to his tent, with the understanding that he 
 was not to issue therefrom until the clarions had thrice sounded by 
 way of signal. At the very first blast, however, out rushed the 
 Guzman, looking as ferocious as a stage Richard who has killed 
 five false Bichmonds, and is anxiously inquiring for the real one 
 wherewith to finish the half-dozen. The too volatile Don was 
 beckoned back by the chief herald as haughtily as when the sem- 
 piternal Widdicombe points out with his whip some obvious duty 
 to be performed by Mr. Merryman. Diego retired muttering, but 
 he again appeared in front of his tent at the second note of sum- 
 mons from the trumpet, and only withdrew after the king had 
 assailed him " with an ugly word." At the third " flourish," the 
 two champions flew at each other, battle-axe in hand. With this 
 weapon they hammered at each other's head, until there was little 
 sense left in either of them. At length, Diego was disarmed; 
 then ensued a contest made up partly of wrestling and partly of 
 boxing ; finally, they had recourse to their swords, when the king, 
 perceiving that murder was likely to ensue, to one or both, threw 
 his baton into the lists, put an end to the combat, and refused per- 
 mission to the adversaries to continue the struggle on horseback. 
 The antagonists shook hands, and the people shouted. The Span- 
 ish knight is deemed, by Belgian chroniclers, as having come off 
 " second best" in the struggle ; but it is also clear that Diego de 
 
220 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Guzman was by far the " toughest customer" that ever confronted 
 Jacques de Lelaing. There was some jealousy on the part of the 
 Iberian, but his behavior was, altogether, marked by generosity. 
 He praised the prowess of Jacques, and presented him with an An- 
 dalusian horse covered with the richest trappings ; and de Lelaing, 
 as unwilling to be outdone in liberality as in fight, sent to Guzman, 
 by a herald, a magnificent charger, with coverings of blue velvet 
 embroidered in gold, and a saddle of violet velvet, to be seated in 
 which, was of itself a luxury. Much dancing at court followed ; 
 and finally, the " good knight" left Valladolid loaded with gifts from 
 the king, praises from men, and love from the ladies, who made 
 surrender of more hearts than he had time to accept. 
 
 In Navarre and in Aragon he challenged all comers, but in 
 vain. Swords slept in scabbards, and battle-axes hung quietly 
 from saddle-bows, and there was more feasting than fighting. At 
 length Jacques, after passing through Perpignan and Narbonne, 
 arrived at Montpelier, where he became the guest of the famous 
 Jacques Coeur, the silversmith and banker of Charles VII. Old 
 Coeur was a hearty old host, for he offered the knight any amount 
 of money he would honor him by accepting ; and he intimated 
 that if De Lelaing, in the course of his travels had found it neces- 
 sary to pawn any of his plate or jewelry, he (Jacques Coeur) 
 would redeem it free of expense. " My good master, the Duke 
 of Burgundy," replied the errant chevalier, " provides all that is 
 necessary for me, and allows me to want for nothing ;" and there- 
 upon he went on his way to the court of Burgundy, where he was 
 received with more honor than if he had been executing a mission 
 for the especial benefit of humanity. 
 
 But these honors were little, compared with the rejoicings which 
 took place when the " good knight" revisited his native chateau, 
 and the parents who therein resided. His sire hugged him till his 
 armor was warm again ; and his lady mother walked about the 
 halls in a state of ecstacy and thanksgiving. Finally, the rafters 
 shook at the efforts of the joyous dancers, and many a judicious 
 matron instructed her daughter how Jacques, who subdued the 
 stoutest knights, might be himself subdued by the very gentlest 
 of ladies. The instruction was given in vain. The good cheva- 
 lier made love alike to young widows, wives, and daughters, and 
 
JACQUES DE LELAING. 221 
 
 having broken more hearts than he ever broke lances, he suddenly- 
 left home in search of new adventures. 
 
 Great was the astonishment, and that altogether of a pleasurable 
 sort, when the herald Charolais appeared at the Scottish court in 
 July, 1449, and delivered a challenge from Jacques to the whole 
 of the Douglases. It was accepted in their name by James 
 Douglas, the brother of the lieutenant-general of the kingdom ; and 
 in December of the year last named, Jacques, with a retinue of 
 fighting uncles, cousins, and friends, embarked at Ecluse and set 
 sail for Caledonia. The party were more battered about by the 
 sea than ever they had been by enemy on land ; and when they 
 arrived at Leith, they looked so " shaky," were so pale and hag- 
 gard, and had so little of a " slashing" look, wrapped up as they 
 were in surcoats and comforters, that the Scottish cavaliers, ob- 
 serving the draggled condition of the strangers and of the plumes 
 which seemed to be moulting from their helmets, fairly asked them 
 what motive induced them to come so far in so sorry a plight, for 
 the mere sake of getting bruised by knights ashore after having 
 been tossed about, sick and sorry, during whole nights at sea. 
 When the northern cavaliers heard that honor and not profit had 
 moved the Belgian company, they marvelled much thereat, but 
 prepared themselves, nevertheless, to meet the new-comers in 
 dread encounter at Stirling. 
 
 James II. presided at the bloody fray, in which three fought 
 against three. What the Scottish chroniclers say of the struggle, 
 I can not learn, but the Belgian historians describe their cham- 
 pions as having been eminently victorious with every arm ; and, 
 according to them, the Douglases were not only soundly drubbed, 
 but took their beating with considerable sulkiness. But there is 
 much poetry in Belgian history, and probably the doughty Doug- 
 las party may not have been so thoroughly worsted as the pleasant 
 chroniclers in question describe them to have been. No doubt 
 the conquerors behaved well, as we know "les braves Beiges" 
 have never failed to do, if history may be credited. However 
 this may be, Jacques and his friends hurried from Scotland, ap- 
 peared at London before the meek Lancastrian king, Henry VI. ; 
 and as the latter would not license his knights to meet the Bur- 
 gundians in the lists, the foreign fighting gentlemen had their pass- 
 
222 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 ports vise, and taking passage in the fast sailer "Flower of 
 Hainault," duly arrived at home, where they were hailed with 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Jacques had short space wherein to breathe. An English 
 knight, named Thomas Karr, speedily appeared at the court of 
 Philip the Duke, and challenged De Lelaing, for the honor of old 
 England. This affair caused a great sensation, and the lists were 
 dressed in a field near Bruges. The English knight was the 
 heavier man in flesh and armor, but Jacques, of course, was the 
 favorite. Dire was the conflict. The adversaries strove to fell 
 each other with their axes, as butchers do oxen. Karr paralyzed, 
 if he did not break, the arm of Jacques ; but the Belgian, dropping 
 his axe, closed with his foe, and after a struggle, fell with and 
 upon him. Karr was required, as a defeated man, to carry the 
 gauntlet of the victor to the lady pointed out by him. But ob- 
 stinate Tom Karr protested against this, as he had only fallen on 
 his elbow. The umpires declared that he had had a full fall, 
 " head, belly, arms, and legs ;" Jacques, however, was generous 
 and would not insist. On the contrary, adverting to the fact that 
 he had himself been the first to drop his own axe, he presented 
 Karr with a rich diamond, as the forfeit due by him who first lost 
 a weapon in the combat. 
 
 Karr had terribly wounded Jacques, and the wound of the lat- 
 ter took long to cure. The Duke Philip hastened his convales- 
 cence by naming him counsellor and chamberlain ; and as soon as 
 the man so honored by his master, had recovered from his wounds, 
 he repaired to Chalons on Saone, where he opened a " tourney," 
 which was talked of in the country for many a long year after- 
 ward. Jacques had vowed that he would appear in the closed 
 lists thirty times before he had attained his thirtieth year ; and 
 this tourney at Chalons was held by him against all comers, in 
 order the better to enable him to fulfil his vow. The detail would 
 be tedious ; suffice it to say that the affair was of barbarian magnifi- 
 cence, and that knights smashed one another's limbs, for personal 
 honor, ladies' love, and the glory of Our Lady in Tears ! Rich 
 prizes were awarded to the victors, as rich forfeits were exacted 
 from the vanquished, and there was not only a sea of good blood 
 spilt in this splendidly atrocious fray, but as much bad blood made 
 
JACQUES DE LELAING. 223 
 
 as there was good blood shed. But then there was empty honor 
 acquired, a frail sort of affection gained, and an impalpable glory 
 added to the non-existent crown of an imaginary Venus Victrix, 
 decorated with the name of Our Lady of Tears ! What more 
 could true knights desire ? Chivalry was satisfied ; and common- 
 place men, with only common sense to direct them, had to look on 
 in admiring silence, at risk of being cudgelled if they dared to 
 speak out. 
 
 Jacques was now at the height of his renown. He was " the 
 good knight without fear and without doubt ;" and Duke Philip 
 placed the last rose in his chaplet of honor, by creating him a 
 knight of the illustrious order of the Golden Fleece. Thus dis- 
 tinguished, he rode about Europe, inviting adversaries to measure 
 swords with him, and meeting with none willing to accept the in- 
 vitation. In 1451 he was the embassador of Burgundy at Rome, 
 charged to negotiate a project of crusade against the Turks. M. 
 Alexander Henne, the author of the best compendium, gathered 
 from the chronicles, of the deeds of Jacques de Lelaing — says 
 that after the knight's mission to Rome, he appeared at a passage 
 of arms held in the park at Brussels, in honor of the Duke of 
 Burgundy's son, the Count of Charolais, then eighteen years of 
 age, and about to make his first appearance in the lists. The 
 Duchess, tender of her son as the Dowager Czarina who kept her 
 boys at home, and had not a tear for other mothers, whose chil- 
 dren have been bloodily sacrificed to the savage ambition of 
 Nicholas — the Duchess careful of the young Count, was desirous 
 that he should make essay before he appeared in the lists. 
 Jacques de Lelaing was accordingly selected to run a lance with 
 him. " Three days before the fete, the Duke, the Duchess, and 
 the Court repaired to the park of Brussels, where the trial was to 
 be made. In the first onset, the Count de Charolais shattered his 
 lance against the shield of Jacques, who raised his own weapon, 
 and passed without touching his adversary. The Duke perceived 
 that the good knight had spared his young adversary ; he was dis- 
 pleased thereat, and sent Jacques word that if he intended to con- 
 tinue the same course, he would do well to meddle no further in 
 the matter. Other lances were then brought, and Jacques, run- 
 ning straight against the Count, both lances flew into splinters. 
 
224 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 At this incident, the Duchess, in her turn, gave expression to her 
 discontent; but the Duke only laughed; and thus mother and 
 father were of different opinions ; the one desiring a fair trial, the 
 other security for her son." On the day of the great tourney, 
 there were assembled, with the multitude, on the great square at 
 Brussels, not less then two hundred and twenty-five princes, barons, 
 knights, and squires. Some of the noblest of these broke a lance 
 with, and perhaps the limbs of, their adversaries. The Count de 
 Charolais broke eighteen lances on that day, and he carried off the 
 the prize, which was conferred upon him by the ladies. 
 
 This was the last of the show-fights in which Jacques de 
 Lelaing exhibited himself. The bloodier conflicts in which he 
 was subsequently engaged, were far less to his credit. They 
 formed a part of the savage war which the despotic Duke and the 
 nobles carried on against the free and opulent cities, whose spirit 
 of liberty was an object of hatred, and whose wealth was an ob- 
 ject of covetous desire, to the Duke and his body of gentleman- 
 like assassins. Many a fair town was devastated by the Duke 
 and his followers, who affected to be inspired by religious feelings, 
 a desire for peace, and a disinclination to make conquests. 
 Whereby it may be seen that the late Czar was only a Burgun- 
 dian duke enlarged, impelled by much the same principle, and 
 addicted to a similar sort of veracity; It was a time of unmitigated 
 horrors, when crimes enough were committed by the nobles to render 
 the name of aristocracy for ever execrable throughout Belgium ; 
 and atrocities were practised by the enraged commons, sufficient 
 to insure, for the plebeians, the undying hatred of their patrician 
 oppressors. There was no respect on either side for age, sex, or 
 condition. The people, of every degree, were transformed into 
 the worst of fiends — slaying, burning, violating, and plundering; 
 and turning from their accursed work to kneel at the shrine of 
 that Mary whose blessed Son was the Prince of Peace. Each 
 side slaughtered, hung, or drowned its prisoners ; but the nobles 
 gave the provocation by first setting the example, and the commons 
 were not cruel till the nobility showed itself alike destitute of 
 honor and of mercy. The arms of the popular party were nerved 
 by the infamy of their adversaries, but many an innocent man on 
 either side was condemned to suffer, undeservedly, for the sins of 
 
JACQUES DE LELAING. 225 
 
 others. The greatest efforts were made against the people of the 
 district and city of Ghent, but all Flanders sympathized with them 
 in a war which was considered national. In the struggle, the 
 Duke won no victory over the people for which the latter did not 
 compel him to pay a frightful price ; he was heartily sick of the 
 war before it was half concluded — even when his banner was be- 
 ing most successfully upheld by the strong arm and slender scruples 
 of Jacques de Lelaing. 
 
 The good knight was however, it must be confessed, among the 
 few — if he were not the only one — of the betterminded nobles. 
 He had been commissioned by the Duke to set fire to the Abbey 
 of Eenaeme, and he obeyed without hesitation, and yet with 
 reluctance. He destroyed the religious edifice with all which it 
 contained, and which could be made to burn ; but having thus 
 performed his duty as a soldier, he forthwith accomplished his 
 equally bounden duty, as a Christian — and, after paying for three 
 masses, at which he devoutly assisted, he confessed himself to a 
 predicant friar, " making a case of conscience," says one of his 
 biographers, " of having, out of respect for discipline, committed 
 an act which the uprightness of his heart compelled him to con- 
 demn as criminal." Never was there a better illustration of that 
 so-called diverse condition of things which is said to represent a 
 distinction without a difference. 
 
 The repentance of Jacques de Lelaing came, it is hoped, in time. 
 He did well, at all events, not to defer it any longer, for he was 
 soon on the threshold of that world where faith ceases and belief 
 begins. He was engaged, although badly wounded, in inspecting 
 the siege-works in the front of the Chateau de Pouckes, that 
 Flemish cradle of the Pooks settled in England. It was on a 
 June afternoon of the year 1453, that Jacques, with a crowd of 
 nobles half-encircling him, rode out, in pite of the protest of his 
 doctors (because, as he said, if he were to remain doing nothing he 
 should certainly die), in order that he might have something to do. 
 There was a famous piece of artillery on the Burgundian side, 
 which was sorely troublesome to the stout little band that was de- 
 fending Pouckes. It was called the " Shepherdess," but never did 
 shepherdess speak with so thundering-unlovely a voice, or fling 
 her favors about her with such dire destruction to those upon whom 
 
 15 
 
226 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 they were showered. Jacques drew up behind the manteau of 
 this cannon, to watch (like our gallant seamen at Sebastopol) the 
 effects of the shot discharged from it. At the same moment a 
 stone projectile, discharged from a culverin by the hand of a young 
 artilleryman of Ghent, who was known as the son of Henry the 
 Blindman, struck Jacques on the forehead, carrying away the upper 
 part of his head, and stretched him dead upon the field. A Car- 
 melite brother rushed up to him to offer the succor and consolation 
 of religion, but it was too late. Jacques had sighed out his last 
 breath, and the friar decently folded the dead warrior's arms over 
 his breast. A mournful troop carried the body back to the camp. 
 The hero of his day died in harness. He had virtues that fitted 
 him for a more refined, a more honest, in short, a more Christian, 
 period. These he exercised whenever he could find opportunity, but 
 such opportunity was rare. He lived at a period when, as M. de Sis- 
 mondi has remarked, " Knights thought of nothing but equalling the 
 Rolands and Olivers of the days of Charlemagne, by the destruction 
 of the vile canaille" — a sort of pastime which has been recently 
 recommended in our senate, although the days of chivalry be gone. 
 The noble comrades of Jacques, as M. ITenne observes, acknowl- 
 edged but one species of supreme pleasure and glory, which con- 
 sisted in making flow abundantly the blood of villains — or, as they 
 are now called, the lower orders. But in truth the modern " villain" 
 or the low-class man is not exclusively to be found in the ranks 
 which have had such names applied to them. As Bosquier- 
 Gavaudan used so joyously to sing, some thirty years ago, in the 
 Mrmite de SL Avelle : — 
 
 " Les gens de bien 
 
 Sont souvent des gens de rien ; 
 Et les gens de rien 
 
 Sont souvent des gens de bien !" 
 
 For a knight, Jacques was really a respectable man, and so dis- 
 gusted with his butcher-like occupation, that, just before his death, 
 he had resolved to surrender his estate to a younger brother, and, 
 since fate had made of him a licensed murderer, to henceforth 
 murder none but eastern infidels — to slay whom was held to be 
 more of a virtue than a sin. Let us add of him, that he was too 
 honest to earn a reputation by being compassionate to half-a-dozen 
 
JACQUES DE LELAING. 227 
 
 helpless foes, after directing his men to slaughter a score of the 
 mutilated and defenceless enemy. Jacques de Lelaing would 
 sooner have sent his dagger up to the hilt in his own heart, than 
 have violated the safeguard of a flag of truce. Such days and 
 such doings of chivalry are not those most agreeable to Russian 
 chivalry. Witness Odessa, where the pious governor directed the 
 fire on a flag of truce which he swore he could not see ; and wit- 
 ness the massacre of Hango, the assassins concerned in which ex- 
 ploit were defended by their worthy superior De Berg. 
 
 Jacques de Lelaing, however, it must not be forgotten, fell in a 
 most unworthy cause — that of a despot armed against free people. 
 His excellent master swore to avenge him; and he kept his word. 
 When the Chateau de Pouckes was compelled to surrender, Philip 
 the Good ordered every one found alive in it to be hung from the 
 walls. He made exception only of a priest or two, one soldier 
 afflicted with what was called leprosy, but which has now another 
 name in the catalogue of avenging maladies, and a couple of boys. 
 It was precisely one of these lads who had, by his well-laid shot, 
 slain " the good knight without fear and without doubt ;" but Philip 
 was not aware of this till the lad was far beyond his reach, and in 
 safety at Ghent. 
 
 Those who may be curious to know the course taken by the 
 war until it was terminated by the treaty of Lille, are recommend- 
 ed to study the Chronicles of De Lettenhooe, of Olivier de la 
 Marche, of Chastellain, and Du Clery. I had no intention, at set- 
 ting out, to paint a battle-piece, but simply to sketch a single figure. 
 My task is done, however imperfectly, and, as old chroniclers were 
 wont to say, May Heaven bless the gentle reader, and send pis- 
 toles and abounding grace to the unworthy author. 
 
 Such is the history of an individual ; let us now trace the for- 
 tunes of a knightly house. The story of the Guises belongs en- 
 tirely to chivalry and statesmanship. 
 
228 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 
 
 " This deals with nohler knights and monarcks, 
 Full of great fears, great hopes, great enterprises." 
 
 Antony Brewer, "Lingua" 
 
 In the pleasant spring-time of the year 1506, a little boy, mount- 
 ed on a mule, and accompanied by a serving man on foot, crossed 
 over the frontier from Lorraine into France. The boy was a 
 pretty child, some ten years old. He was soberly clad, but a 
 merry heart beat under his gray jerkin ; and his spirits were as 
 light as the feather in his bonnet. The servant who walked at 
 his side was a simple yet faithful follower of his house ; but there 
 was no more speculation in his face than there was in that of the 
 mule. Nothing could have looked more harmless and innocent 
 than the trio in question; and yet the whole — joyous child, plod- 
 ding servitor, and the mule whose bells rang music as he trod — 
 formed one of the most remarkable invasions of which the kino-- 
 dom of France has ever been the victim. 
 
 The boy was the fifth child of Rene and Philippa de Gueldres, 
 the ducal sovereigns of Lorraine. This duchy, a portion of the 
 old kingdom of Lotharingia — in disputes for the possession of 
 which the children of Charlemagne had shed rivers of blood — had 
 maintained its independence, despite the repeated attempts of Ger- 
 many and France to reduce it to subjection. At the opening of 
 the sixteenth century, it had seen a legal succession of sovereign 
 and independent masters during seven centuries. The reigning 
 duke was Rene, the second of that name. He had acquired es- 
 tates in France, and he had inherited the hatred of Lorraine to 
 the Capetian race which had dethroned the heirs of Charlemagne. 
 It was for this double reason that he unostentatiously sent into the 
 kingdom of France one of his sons, a boy of fair promise. The 
 
THE FORTUNES OP A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 229 
 
 mission of the yet unconscious child was to increase the territorial 
 possessions of his family within the French dominions, and ulti- 
 mately to rule both Church and State — if not from the throne, 
 why then from behind it. 
 
 The merry boy proved himself in course of time to be no un- 
 fitting instrument for this especial purpose. He was brought up 
 at the French court,, studied chivalry, and practised passages of 
 arms with French knights ; was the first up at re.veillee, the last 
 at a feast, the most devout at mass, and the most winning in ladies' 
 bower. The princes of the blood loved him, and so did the prin- 
 cesses. The arnry hailed him with delight ; and the church be- 
 held in him and his brother, Cardinal John, two of those cham- 
 pions whom it records with gladness, and canonizes with alacrity. 
 
 Such was Claude of Lorraine, who won the heart and lands of 
 Antoinette de Bourbon, and who received from Francis I. not 
 only letters of naturalization, but the title of Duke of Guise. The 
 locality so named is in Picardy. It had fallen to the house of 
 Lorraine by marriage, and the dignity of Count which accompa- 
 nied it was now changed for that of Duke. It was not long before 
 Claude made the title famous. The sword of Guise was never 
 from his grasp, and its point was unceasingly directed against the 
 enemies of his new country. He shed his own blood, and spilled 
 that of others, with a ferocious joy. Francis saw in him the 
 warmest of his friends and the bravest of his soldiers. His 
 bravery helped to the glory that was reaped at Marignan, at Fon- 
 tarabia, and in Picardy. Against internal revolt or foreign inva- 
 sion he was equally irresistible. His sword drove back the Impe- 
 rialists of Germany within their own frontier ; and when on the 
 night of Pavia the warriors of France sat weeping like girls amid 
 the wide ruin around them, his heart alone throbbed with hopeful 
 impulses, and his mind only was filled with bright visions of vic- 
 tories to come. 
 
 These came indeed, but they were sometimes triumphs that 
 earned for him an immortality of infamy. The crest of his house 
 was a double cross, and this device, though it was no emblem of 
 the intensity of religion felt by those who bore it, ivas significant 
 of the double sanguinary zeal of the family — a zeal employed 
 solely for selfish ends. The apostolic reformers of France were, 
 
230 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 at this period, in a position of some power. Their preachers were 
 in the pulpit, and their people in the field. They heard the gos- 
 pel leaning on their swords ; and, the discourse done, they rushed 
 bravely into battle to defend what they had heard. 
 
 Against these pious but strong-limbed confederates the wrath 
 of Guise was something terrible. It did not, like that of Francis 
 I. — who banqueted one day the unorthodox friends whom he 
 burned the next — alternate with fits of mercy. It raged without 
 intermission, and before it the Reformers of Alsatia were swept 
 as before a blast in whose hot breath was death. He spared nei- 
 ther sex nor age ; and he justified his bloody deeds by blasphe- 
 mously asserting that he was guided to them by the light of a cross 
 which blazed before him hi the heavens. The church honored 
 him with the name of " good and faithful servant ;" but there are 
 Christian hearths in Alsatia where he is still whisperingly spoken 
 of as " the accursed butcher." 
 
 When his own fingers began to hold less firmly the handle of 
 his sword, he also began to look among his children for those who 
 were most likely to carry out the mission of his house. His eye 
 marked, approvingly, the bearing of his eldest son Francis, Count 
 D'Aumale ; and had no less satisfaction in the brothers of Francis, 
 who, whether as soldiers or priests, were equally ready to further 
 the interests of Lorraine, and call them those of Heaven. His 
 daughter Mary he gave to James V. of Scotland ; and the bride 
 brought destruction for her dowry. Upon himself and his chil- 
 dren, Francis I., and subsequently Henry II., looked at last with 
 mingled admiration and dread. Honors and wealth were lavished 
 upon them with a prodigal and even treasonable liberality. The 
 generous king gave to the insatiate Guise the property of the 
 people ; and when these complained somewhat menacingly, Guise 
 achieved some new exploit, the public roar of applause for which 
 sanctioned a quiet enjoyment of his ill-gotten treasures. 
 
 For the purpose of such enjoyment he retired to his castle at 
 Joinville. The residence was less a palace than a monastery. It 
 was inhabited by sunless gloom and a deserted wife. The neg- 
 lected garden was trimmed at the coming of the duke, but not for 
 his sake nor for that of the faithful Antoinette. Before the eyes 
 of that faithful wife he built a bower for a mistress who daily de- 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 231 
 
 graded with blows the hero of a hundred stricken fields. He 
 deprecated the rough usage of the courtesan with tears and gold ; 
 and yet he had no better homage for the virtuous mother of his 
 children, than a cold civility. His almost sudden death in 1550 
 was accounted for as being the effect of poison, administered at 
 the suggestion of those to whom his growing greatness was offen- 
 sive. The accusation was boldly graven on his monument ; and 
 it is probably true. No one however, profited by the crime. 
 
 The throne found in his children more dangerous supporters 
 than he had ever been himself; and the people paid for their 
 popular admiration with loss of life and liberty. The church, 
 however, exulted ; for Claude of Lorraine, first Duke of Guise, 
 gave to it the legitimate son, Cardinal Charles, who devised the 
 massacre of the day of St. Bartholomew; and the illegitimate 
 son, the Abbe de Cluny, who, on that terrible day, made his dag- 
 ger drink the blood of the Huguenots, till the wielder of it became 
 as drunk with frenzy as he was wont to be with the fiery wine 
 which was his peculiar and intense delight. 
 
 The first Duke of Guise only laid a foundation, upon which he 
 left his heirs and successors to build at their discretion. He had, 
 nevertheless, effected much. He had gained for his family con- 
 siderable wealth ; and if he had not also obtained a crown, he had 
 acquired possession of rich crown-lands. The bestowing upon him 
 of these earned popular execration for the king ; the people, at 
 the same time, confessed that the services of Guise were worthy 
 of no meaner reward. When King Francis saw that he was 
 blamed for bestowing what the recipient was deemed worthy of 
 having granted to him, we can hardly wonder that Francis, while 
 acknowledging the merits of the aspiring family, bade the members 
 of his own to be on their guard against the designs of every child 
 of the house of Lorraine. 
 
 But he was no child who now succeeded to the honors of his 
 father, the first duke. Francis of Guise, at his elevation to the 
 ducal title, saw before him two obstacles to further greatness. 
 One was a weak king, Henry II.; and the other, a powerful 
 favorite, the Constable de Montmorency, from whose family, it 
 was popularly said, had sprung the first Christian within the realm 
 of France. Francis speedily disposed of the favorite, and almost 
 
232 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 as speedily raised himself to the vacant office, which he exercised 
 so as to further his remote purposes. In the meantime the king 
 was taught to believe that his crown and happiness were depen- 
 dent on his Lorraine cousins, who, on their side, were not only 
 aiming at the throne of France for one member of the house, but 
 were aspiring to the tiara for a second ; the crown of Naples for 
 a third — to influence in Flanders and in Spain, and even to the 
 diadem of Elizabeth of England, succession to which was recog- 
 nised as existing in them, by Mary Stuart, in case of her own 
 decease without direct heirs. It is said that the British Roman- 
 ists looked forward with unctuous complacency to the period when 
 the sceptre of this island should fall into the blood-stained grasp 
 of a " Catholic Guise." 
 
 It was not only the fortune of Francis to repair the ill luck en- 
 countered in the field by Montmorency, but to gain advantages in 
 fight, such as France had not yet seen. The Emperor Charles V. 
 had well-nigh got possession of beleaguered Metz, when Guise 
 threw himself into the place, rescued it from the Emperor, and 
 swept the Imperialists out of France. His fiery wrath cooled 
 only in presence of the wounded, to whom he behaved with gentle 
 and helping courtesy. His gigantic labors here brought on an 
 attack of fever ; and when he was compelled to seek rest in his 
 house at Marchez, a host of priests and cardinals of his family 
 gathered round his court, and excited him to laughter by rough 
 games that suited but sorrily with their calling. 
 
 The second duke inherited his father's hatred for " heretics." 
 The great Colligny had been his bosom friend ; but when that 
 renowned Reformer gave evidence of his new opinions upon re- 
 ligious subjects, then ensued, first a coldness, then fits of angry 
 quarrelling, and at last a duel, in which, though neither combatant 
 was even scratched, friendship was slain for ever. Duke Francis 
 was prodigal like his father, but then his brother, Cardinal Charles, 
 was minister of the finances : and the king and his mistress, Diana 
 de Poictiers, cared not how the revenue was managed, so that 
 money was forthcoming when necessity pressed. The consequence 
 was, that the king's exchequer was robbed to supply the extrava- 
 gances of Guise. But then men began to associate with the name 
 the idea of deliverance from oppression ; and they did not count 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 233 
 
 the cost. And yet victory did not invariably select for her throne 
 the glittering helm of the aspiring duke. The pope had selected 
 him as commander of the papal army acting against Naples, but 
 intrigue paralyzed the arm which had never before been conquered, 
 and the pontiff showered epigrams upon him instead of laurels. 
 
 In this momentary eclipse of the sun of his glory, the duke 
 placed his own neck under the papal heel. He served in the 
 pope's chapel as an Acolyte, meekly bore the mantle of obese and 
 sneering cardinals, and exhibited a humility which was not without 
 success. When at a banquet given by a cardinal, Guise humbly 
 sat down at the lower end of the table, he asked a French officer 
 who was endeavoring to thrust in below him, " Why comest thou 
 here, friend ?" " That it might not be said," answered the soldier, 
 " that the representative of the King of France took the very 
 lowest place at a priest's table !" 
 
 From such reproaches Guise gladly fled, to buckle on his armor 
 and drive back an invasion of France by the Hispano-Flemings 
 on the north. The services he now rendered his country made 
 the people almost forget the infamy of their king, who was wasting 
 life in his capital, and the oppressive imposts of the financial car- 
 dinal, whom the sufferers punningly designated as Cardinal La 
 Buine. The ruin he achieved was forgiven in consideration of 
 the glory accomplished by his brother, who had defeated and de- 
 stroyed the armies which threatened the capital from the north ; 
 and who had effected much greater glory by suddenly falling on 
 Calais with a force of ten to one, and tearing from the English 
 the last of the conquests till then held by them in France. Old 
 Lord Wentworth, the governor, plied his artillery with a roar that 
 was heard on the English coast : but the roar was all in vain. 
 There was a proverb among our neighbors, and applied by them 
 to every individual of mediocre qualifications, that " he was not 
 the sort of man to drive the English out of France." That man 
 was found in Guise ; and the capital began naturally to contrast 
 him with the heartless king, who sat at the feet of a concubine, 
 and recked little of the national honor or disgrace. And yet, the 
 medals struck to commemorate the recovery of Calais bear the 
 names only of Henri and Diana. They omit all mention of the 
 great liberator, Guise ! 
 
234: THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 The faults of Henri, however, are not to be entirely attributed 
 to himself. He had some feelings of compassion for the wretched 
 but stout-hearted Huguenots, with whom, in the absence of Guise, 
 he entered into treaties, which, Guise present, he was constrained 
 to violate ! In pursuit of the visions of dominion in France, and 
 of the tiara at Rome, the ambitious house sought only to gain the 
 suffrages of the church and the faithful. To win smiles from 
 them, the public scaffolds were deluged with the blood of heretics ; 
 and all were deemed so who refused to doff their caps to the 
 images of the virgin, raised in the highways at the suggestion of 
 the duke and the cardinal. This terrific persecution begat remon- 
 strance ; but when remonstrance was treated as if it were rebel- 
 lion, rebellion followed thereupon ; as, perhaps, was hoped for ; 
 and the swords of the Guisards went flashing over every district 
 in France, dealing death wherever dwelt the alleged enemies of 
 God, who dared to commune with Him according to conscience, 
 rather than according to Rome. Congregations, as at Vassi, were 
 set upon and slaughtered in cold blood, without resistance. In the 
 Huguenot " temple" of this last place was found a Bible. It was 
 brought to the duke. This noble gentleman could spell no better 
 than the great Duke of Marlborough ; and Guise was, moreover, 
 worse instructed in the faith which he professed. He looked into 
 the Book of Life, unconscious of what he held, and with a won- 
 dering exclamation as to what it might be all about, he flung it 
 aside, and turned to the further slaughter of those who believed 
 therein. 
 
 In such action he saw his peculiar mission for the moment, but 
 he was not allowed to pursue it unopposed. His intrigues and his 
 cruelties made rebels even of the princes of the blood ; and Conde 
 took the field to revenge their wrongs, as well as those of the 
 Reformers. The issue was tried on the bloody day at Dreux, 
 when the setting sun went down on a Protestant army routed, and 
 on Conde a captive ; but sharing the bed, as was the custom of 
 the time, of his proved victor Guise. Never did two more deadly 
 enemies lie on the same couch, sleepless, and full of mutual sus- 
 picion. But the hatred of Conde was a loyal hatred ; that of 
 Guise was marked by treacherous malignity. The Protestant 
 party, in presence of that hot fury, seemed to melt away like a 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 235 
 
 snow-wraith in the sun. He and his Guisards were the terror of 
 the so-called enemies of the Faith. Those whom he could not 
 reach by the sword, he struck down by wielding against them the 
 helpless hand of the king, who obeyed with the passiveness of a 
 Marionette, and raised stakes, and fired the pile, and gave the 
 victim thereto, simply because Guise would so have it. 
 
 The duke received one portion at least of his coveted reward. 
 At every massacre of inoffensive Protestants, the Catholic pulpits 
 resounded with biblical names, showered down upon him by the 
 exulting preachers. When his banner had swept triumphantly 
 over successive fields, whose after-crops were made rich by heret- 
 ical blood, then did the church pronounce him to be a soldier 
 divinely armed, who had at length " consecrated his hands, and 
 avenged the quarrel of the Lord." 
 
 Guise lived, it is true, at a period when nothing was held so 
 cheap as life. Acts of cruelty were but too common in all fac- 
 tions. If he delivered whole towns to pillage and its attendant 
 horrors, compared with which death were merciful, he would him- 
 self exhibit compassion, based on impulse or caprice. He was 
 heroic, according to the thinking of his age, which considered 
 heroism as being constituted solely of unflinching courage. In 
 all other respects, the duke, great as he was, was as mean as the 
 veriest knave who trailed a pike in his own bands. Scarcely a 
 letter addressed to his officers reached them without having been 
 previously read to their right worshipful master. There was 
 scarcely a mansion in the kingdom, whose lord was a man of in- 
 fluence, but that at that table and the hearth there sat a guest who 
 was the paid spy of Francis of Guise. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add that his morality generally was on 
 a par with the particular specimens we have given of it. Crowds 
 of courtesans accompanied him to the camp, while he deliberately 
 exposed his own wife, Anne of Este, the sister of Tasso's Leonora, 
 to the insulting homage of a worthless king. Emphatically may 
 it be said that the truth was not in him. He gloried in mendacity. 
 2so other personage that I can call to mind ever equalled him in 
 lying — except, perhaps, those very highly professing heroes who 
 swagger in Greek tragedy. He procured, by a He, the capital 
 conviction of Conde. The latter escaped the penalty, and taxed 
 
236 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 the duke with his falsehood. Guise swore by his sword, his life, 
 his honor, his very soul, that he was innocent of the charge. 
 Conde looked on the ducal liar with a withering contempt, and 
 turned from him with a sarcasm that should have pierced him like 
 a sword. Pointed as it was, it could not find way through his 
 corslet to his heart. He met it with a jest, and deemed the sin 
 unregistered. 
 
 There was a watchful public, nevertheless, observing the prog- 
 ress made toward greatness by the chivalric duke, and his brother 
 the cardinal. Henry II. had just received the mortal blow dealt 
 him at a tournament by the lance of Montgomery. Francis II., 
 his brother, the husband of Mary Stuart, and therewith nephew 
 to Guise, succeeded to the uneasy throne and painful privileges 
 of Henri. On the night of this monarch's decease, two courtiers 
 were traversing a gallery of the Louvre. " This night," said one, 
 " is the eve of the Festival of the Three Kings." " How mean 
 you by that ?" asked the other with a smile. " I mean," rejoined 
 the first, " that to-morrow we shall have three monarchs in Paris 
 — one of them, King of France; the others Kings in France — 
 from Lorraine." 
 
 Under the latter two, Duke and Cardinal, was played out the 
 second act of the great political drama of Lorraine. It was alto- 
 gether a melo-drama, in which there was abundance of light and 
 shadow. At times, we find the hero exhibiting exemplary candor ; 
 anon, he is the dark plotter, or the fierce and open slayer of his 
 kind. There are stirring scenes of fights, wherein his adversaries 
 draw their swords against him, at the instigation of a disgusted 
 King, who no sooner saw Guise triumphant, than he devoted to 
 death the survivors whom he had clandestinely urged into the fray. 
 
 The battles were fought, on one side, for liberty of conscience ; 
 on the other, for the sake of universal despotism. The bad side 
 triumphed during a long season ; and field after field saw waving 
 over it the green banner of Lorraine. Catherine de Medicis, and 
 her son Charles IX., accompanied the Duke in more than one 
 struggle, after the short-lived reign of Francis II. had come to an 
 end. They passed, side by side, through the breach at Rouen ; 
 but accident divided them at Orleans, where had assembled the 
 gallant few who refused to despair for the Protestant cause. 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 237 
 
 Guise beleaguered the city, and was menacingly furious at its 
 obstinacy in holding out. One evening he had ridden with his 
 staff to gaze more nearly at the walls, from behind which defiance 
 was flung at him. " You will never be able to get in," remarked 
 roughly a too presuming official. " Mark me !" roared the chafed 
 Duke, " yon setting sun will know to-morrow how to get behind 
 that rampart ; and by Heaven, so will I !" He turned his horse, 
 and galloped back alone to his quarters. He was encountered on 
 his way by a Huguenot officer, Poltrot cle la Mer, who brought 
 him down by a pistol-shot. The eyes of the dying Duke, as he 
 lay upon the ground, met for the last time the faint rays of that 
 departing sun, with which he had sworn to be up and doing on the 
 morrow. He died in his hut. His condition was one of extreme 
 " comfortableness." He had robbed the King's exchequer to grat- 
 ify his own passions ; — and he thanked Heaven that he had been 
 a faithful subject to his sovereign ! He had been notoriously un- 
 faithful to a noble and virtuous wife ; and he impressed upon her 
 with his faltering lips, the assurance that " generally speaking" his 
 infidelity as a husband did not amount to much worth mentioning ! 
 He confessed to, and was shriven by his two brothers, Cardinals 
 John and Charles. The former was a greater man than the Duke. 
 The latter was known in his own times and all succeeding, as " the 
 bottle cardinal," a name of which he was only not ashamed, but 
 his title to which he was ever ostentatiously desirous to vindicate 
 and establish. 
 
 The first Duke had acquired possession of crown-lands ; the 
 second had at his disposal the public treasure ; and the third hoped 
 to add to the acquisitions of his family the much-coveted sceptre 
 of the Kings of France. 
 
 Henri, surnamed Le Balafre, or " the scarred," succeeded his fa- 
 ther in the year 1 5 60. During the greater portion of his subsequent 
 life, his two principal objects were the destruction of Protestantism, 
 and the possession of the King's person. He therewith flattered 
 the national vanity by declaring that the natural limits of France, 
 on two sides, were the Rhine and the Danube — an extension of 
 frontier which was never effected, except temporarily, in the latter 
 days of Napoleon. But the declaration entailed a popularity on 
 the Duke which was only increased by his victory at Jarnac, 
 
238 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. « 
 
 when the French Protestants not only suffered defeat, but lost 
 their leader, the brave and unfortunate Conde. This gallant chief 
 had surrendered, but he was basely murdered by a pistol-shot, and 
 his dead body, flung across an ass, was paraded through the ranks 
 of the victors, as a trophy. How far the Duke was an accomplice 
 in the crime, is not determined. That such incidents were deemed 
 lightly of by him, is sufficiently clear by his own proclamation in 
 seven languages, wherein he accused Coligny as the instigator of 
 the murder of the late Duke of Guise, and set a price upon that 
 noble head, to be won by any assassin. 
 
 For that so-called murder, Guise had his revenge on the day 
 of St. Bartholomew, when he vainly hoped that the enemies of his 
 house had perished for ever. On the head of more than one 
 member of the house of Guise rests the res'ponsibility of that terri- 
 ble day. During the slaughter, Guise gained his revenge, but lost 
 his love. The cries of the victims were the nuptial songs chanted 
 at the marriage-ceremony of Henri of Navarre and Margaret, the 
 King's sister. The latter had looked, nothing loath, upon the suit 
 offered to her by Guise, who was an ardent wooer. But the 
 wooing had been roughly broken in upon by the lady's brother, 
 the Due d'Anjou, who declared aloud in the Louvre, that if Guise 
 dared look with lover's eyes upon " Margot," he would run his 
 knife into the lover's throat ! The threat had its influence, and 
 the unfaithful wooer, who had been all the while solemnly affianced 
 to a Princess Catherine of Cleves, married that remarkable bru- 
 nette, and showed his respect for her, by speaking and writing of 
 her as " that amiable lady, the negress." It may be noticed in 
 passing, that the objection of D'Anjou to Guise as a brother-in- 
 law, was not personal; it had a political foundation. The two 
 dukes became, indeed, brothers-in-law ; not by Guise marrying 
 the sister of D'Anjou, but by D'Anjou marrying the sister' of 
 Guise, and by sharing with her the throne which he, subsequently, 
 occupied rather than enjoyed, as Henri III. 
 
 When summoned to the throne by the unedifying death of 
 Charles IX., Henry of Anjou was king of Poland. He escaped 
 from that country with difficulty, in order to wear a more brilliant 
 but a more fatal crown in France. He had no sooner assumed it, 
 when he beheld the Guises encircling him, and leaving him neither 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 239 
 
 liberty nor will. The Protestants were driven into rebellion. 
 They found a leader in Henry of Navarre, and Guise and his 
 friends made war against them, irrespective of the King's consent, 
 and cut in pieces, with their swords, the treaties entered into be- 
 tween the two Henrys, without the consent of the third Henri — 
 of Guise and Lorraine. The latter so completely enslaved the 
 weak and unhappy sovereign, as to wring from him, against his 
 remonstrance and conviction, the famous articles of Nemours, 
 wherein it was solemnly decreed in the name of the King, and 
 confirmed by the signature of Guise, that, thenceforward, it was 
 the will of God that there should be but one faith in France, and 
 that the opposers thereof would find that opposition incurred death. 
 There is a tradition that when Henri III. was told of this de- 
 cree, he was seated in deep meditation, his head resting upon his 
 hand ; and that when he leaped to his feet with emotion, at the 
 impiety of the declaration, it was observed that the part of his 
 moustache which had been covered by his hand, had suddenly 
 turned gray. 
 
 The misery that followed on the publication of these infamous 
 articles was widely spread, and extended to other hearths besides 
 those of the Huguenots. Sword, pestilence, and famine, made a 
 desert of a smiling country ; and the universal people, in their 
 common sorrow, cursed all parties alike — "King and Queen, 
 Pope and Calvin," and only asked from Heaven release from all, 
 and peace for those who suffered by the national divisions. The 
 King, indeed, was neither ill-intentional nor intolerant ; but Guise 
 so intrigued as to persuade the " Catholic" part of the nation that 
 Henri was incapable. Faction then began to look upon the pow- 
 erful subject as the man best qualified to meet the great emergency. 
 He fairly cajoled them into rebellion. They were, indeed, willing 
 to be so cajoled by a leader so liberal of promises, and yet he was 
 known to be as cruel as he engaged himself to be liberal. He 
 often kept his own soldiers at a point barely above starvation ; 
 and the slightest insubordination in a regiment entailed the penalty 
 of death. To his foes he was more terrible still. As he stood in 
 the centre of a conquered town that had been held by the Hugue- 
 nots, it was sport to him to see the latter tossed into the flames. 
 On one occasion he ordered a Huguenot officer to be torn asunder 
 
240 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 by young horses for no greater crime than mutilating a wooden 
 idol in a church. The officer had placed the mutilated figure on 
 a bastion of the city, with a pike across its breast, as a satire on 
 the guardianship which such a protector was popularly believed 
 to afford. 
 
 He could, however, be humane when the humor and good reason 
 for it came together. Thus he parted with a pet lioness, which 
 he kept at his quarters, on the very sufficient ground that the 
 royal beast had, on a certain morning, slain and swallowed one of 
 his favorite footmen ! A commonplace lacquey he might have 
 spared without complaining ; but he could not, without some irrita- 
 tion, hear of a valet being devoured who, though a valet, had a pro- 
 found belief that his master was a hero. 
 
 The " Bartholomew" had not destroyed all the foes of the name 
 of Guise. What was not accomplished on that day was sought 
 to be achieved by the " League." The object of this society was 
 to raise the Duke to the throne of Henri, either before or after 
 the death of the latter. The King Avas childless, and the pre- 
 sumptive heir to the throne, Henri of Navarre, was a Protestant. 
 The Lorrainers had double reason, then, for looking to themselves. 
 The reigning sovereign was the last of three brothers who had in- 
 herited the crown, and there was then a superstitious idea that 
 when three brothers had reigned in France, a change of dynasty 
 was inevitable. 
 
 Guise fired his followers with the assurance that the invasion 
 of England, and the establishment of Popery there, should be an 
 enterprise which they should be called upon to accomplish. The 
 King was in great alarm at the " League," but he wisely consti- 
 tuted himself a member. The confederates kept him in the dark 
 as to the chief of their objects. The suspicious monarch, on the 
 other hand, encouraged his minions to annoy his good cousin of 
 Lorraine. One of these unworthy favorites, St. Megrim, did 
 more : he slandered the wife of Guise, who took, thereon, a 
 singular course of trial and revenge. He aroused Ins Duchess 
 from her solitary couch, in the middle of the night, hissed in her 
 alarmed ear the damning rumor that was abroad, and bade her 
 take at once from his hands the dagger or the poison-cup, which 
 he offered her ; — adding that she had better die, having so greatly 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 241 
 
 sinned. The offended and innocent wife cared not for life, since 
 she was suspected, and drank off the contents of the cup, after 
 protestation of her innocence. The draught was of harmless prep- 
 aration, for the Duke was well assured of the spotless character 
 of a consort whom he himself daily dishonored by his infidelities. 
 He kissed her hand and took his leave ; but he sent a score of his 
 trusty-men into the courtyard of the Louvre, who fell on St. 
 Megrim, and butchered him almost on the threshold of the King's 
 apartments. 
 
 The monarch made no complaint at the outrage ; but he raised 
 a tomb over the mangled remains of his favorite minion, above 
 which a triad of Cupids represented the royal grief, by holding 
 their stony knuckles to their tearless eyes, affecting the passion 
 which they could not feel. 
 
 In the meantime, while the people were being pushed to rebel- 
 lion at home, the ducal family were intriguing in nearly every 
 court in Europe. Between the intrigues of Guise and the reck- 
 lessness of the King, the public welfare suffered shipwreck. So 
 nearly complete was the ruin, that it was popularly said, " The 
 Minions crave all : the King gives all ; the Queen-mother man- 
 ages all ; Guise opposes all ; the Red Ass (the Cardinal) embroils 
 all, and would that the Devil had all !" 
 
 But the opposition of Guise was made to some purpose. By 
 exercising it he exacted from the King a surrender of several 
 strong cities. They were immediately garrisoned by Guisards, 
 though held nominally by the sovereign. From the latter the 
 Duke wrung nearly all that it was in the power of the monarch 
 to yield ; but when Guise, who had a design against the life of the 
 Protestant Henri of Navarre, asked for a royal decree prohibit- 
 ing the granting of " quarter" to a Huguenot in the field, the 
 King indignantly banished him from the capital. Guise feigned 
 to obey; but his celebrated sister, the Duchess of Montpensier, 
 refused to share in even a temporary exile. This bold woman 
 went about in public, with a pair of scissors at her girdle, which, 
 as she intimated, would serve for the tonsure of brother Henri of 
 Valois, when weariness should drive him from a palace into a 
 monastery. 
 
 The King, somewhat alarmed, called around him his old Swiss 
 
 16 
 
242 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 body guard, and as the majority of these men professed the re- 
 formed faith, Guise made use of the circumstance to obtain greater 
 ends than any he had yet obtained. The people were persuaded 
 that their religion was in peril ; and when the Duke, breaking his 
 ban, entered Paris and, gallantly attired, walked by the side of 
 the sedan of Catherine of Medicis, on their way to the Louvre, 
 to remonstrate with the unorthodox king, the church-bells gave 
 their joyous greeting, and the excited populace hung upon the 
 steps of the Duke, showering upon him blessings and blasphemous 
 appellations. "Hosanna to our new son of David !" shouted 
 those who affected to be the most pious ; and aged women, kissing 
 his garment as he passed, rose from their knees, exclaiming, " Lord, 
 now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have 
 seen thy salvation !" 
 
 The less blasphemous or the more sincere sufficiently expressed 
 their satisfaction by hailing him, as he went on his way, smiling, 
 " King of Paris !" 
 
 The sound of this title reached the ears of Henri. Coupling 
 it with the unauthorized return of Guise to court, he passed into 
 alternate fits of ungovernable wrath and profound melancholy. 
 He was under the influence of the latter when there fell on his 
 ear, words which make him start from his seat — "Percutiam pas- 
 torem, et dispergentur oves ;" and when the Monarch looked round 
 for the speaker, he beheld the Abbe d'Elbene, who had thus calm- 
 ly quoted Scripture, in order to recommend murder. The King, 
 though startled, was not displeased. On the contrary, he smiled ; 
 and the smile was yet around his lips, and in his eyes, when Guise 
 entered the presence, and mistook the expression of the royal face 
 for one of welcome. The Duke, emboldened by what he saw, 
 hurried through a long list of grievances, especially dwelling on 
 the lenity, not to say favor, with which Henri treated the heretics 
 generally. The sovereign made a few excuses, which Guise 
 heeded not ; on the contrary, he hastened to denounce the body of 
 minions who polluted the palace. " Love me, love my dog," said 
 Henri, in a hoarse voice. " Yes/' answered Guise, peering into 
 the royal and unnaturally sparkling eyes, "provided he doesn't 
 bite !" The two men stood revealed before each other ; and from 
 that hour the struggle was deadly. Henri would not give away, 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 243 
 
 with reference to his Swiss guard ; and Guise, passing through 
 Paris, with his sword unsheathed, awoke the eager spirit of revolt, 
 and looked complacently on while the barricades were raised to 
 impede the march of the execrable Calvinistic Archers of the 
 Guard. The " King of Paris" earned a decisive victory ; but be- 
 fore it was achieved, the King of France hurried, in an agony of 
 cowardly affright, from his capital. He gazed for a moment on 
 the city, as he departed, venting curses on its ingratitude ; for, said 
 the fugitive Monarch, "I loved you better than I did my own 
 wife ;" — which was indisputably true. 
 
 Guise might now have ascended the throne, had he not been too 
 circumspect. He deemed the royal cause lost, but he was satis- 
 fied for the moment with ruling in the capital, as generalissimo. 
 He stopped the King's couriers, and opened his letters. He con- 
 fiscated the property of Huguenots, and sold the same for his own 
 benefit, while he professed to care only for that of the Common- 
 wealth. Finally, he declared that the disturbed condition of affairs 
 should be regulated by a States- General, which he commanded 
 rather than prayed Henri to summon to a meeting at Blois. The 
 King consented ; and the 18th of October, 1588, was appointed 
 for the opening. Guise entered the old town with his family, and 
 a host of retainers, cased in armor, and bristling with steel. 
 Henri had his mother Catherine at his side ; but there were also 
 a few faithful and unscrupulous followers with him in the palace 
 at Blois ; and as he looked on any of those who might happen to 
 salute him in passing, the King smiled darkly, and Per curiam 
 pastorem fell in murmured satisfaction from his lips. The satur- 
 nine monarch became, all at once, cheerful in his outward bearing, 
 even when Guise was so ruling the States as to make their pro- 
 ceedings turn to the detriment of the monarchy. The Guise fac- 
 tion became anxious for the safety of their leader, whose quarters 
 were in the palace ; but when the King, in token of reconciliation 
 begged the Duke to participate with him in the celebration of the 
 Holy Sacrament, there was scarcely a man capable of interpreting 
 the manner of the times, who did not feel assured that under such 
 a solemn pledge of security, there lay concealed the very basest 
 treachery. Guise, over-confident, scorned alike open warning and 
 dark inuendoes. He was so strong, and his royal antagonist so 
 
244 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 weak, that he despised the idea of violence being used against him 
 — especially as the keys of the palatial castle were in his keeping, 
 as " Grand-Master" of the Court. 
 
 The 23d of December had arrived. The King intimated that 
 he should proceed early in the morning, soon after daybreak (but 
 subsequently to holding a council, to which he summoned the 
 Duke and Cardinal), to the shrine of Our Lady of Clery, some 
 two miles distant ; and the keys of the gates were demanded, in 
 order to let Henri have issue at his pleasure, but in reality to keep 
 the Guises within, isolated from their friends without. Larchant, 
 one of the Archers of the Guard, also waited upon the Duke, to 
 pray him to intercede for himself and comrades with the King, in 
 order to obtain for them an increase of pay. " We will do our- 
 selves the honor," said Larchant, " to prefer our petition to your 
 Highness, in the morning, in a body." This was a contrivance to 
 prevent Guise from being surprised at seeing so many armed men 
 together in the King's antechamber, before the council was sitting. 
 Henri passed a sleepless night. His namesake of Guise, who had 
 just sent his Duchess homeward, her approaching confinement be- 
 ing expected, spent the whole of the same night in the apartments 
 of the Countess de JNoirmoutier. 
 
 He was seen coming thence, before dawn, gayly dressed, and 
 proceeding to the Chapel of the Virgin, to perform his morning 
 devotions. Long before this, the King was a-foot, visiting the 
 select archers who had accepted the bloody mission of ridding the 
 perplexed monarch of his importunate adversary. He posted 
 them, altered the arrangements, reposted them, addressed them 
 again and again on the lawfulness of their office, and had some 
 trouble to suppress an enthusiasm which threatened to wake the 
 Queen-mother, who slept below, and to excite the suspicion of the 
 Guards in the vicinity. Staircase and hall, closet and arras, no 
 coign of vantage but had its assassin ready to act, should his fel- 
 lows have failed. 
 
 Precisely at seven o'clock, Guise, attired in a light suit of gray 
 satin, and followed by Pericart, his secretary, entered the council- 
 chamber, where he found several members assembled ; among 
 others, his younger brother, the " Bottle- Cardinal" de Guise. An 
 hour passed without the appearance of any message from the 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 245 
 
 King, who was in an inner apartment, now half-frightened at the 
 pale faces of his own confidants, and anon endeavoring to excite 
 his own resolution, by attempts to encourage theirs. It was a long 
 and weary hour for all parties. As it slowly passed away, Guise, 
 he knew not wherefore, grew anxious. He complained of the 
 cold, and heaped billets of wood upon the fire. He spoke of feel- 
 ing sick, faint, and unnerved ; and from his silver sweetmeat-case 
 he took a few bonbons, by way of breakfast. He subsequently 
 asked for some Damascus raisins, and conserve of roses ; but 
 these, when supplied to him did not relieve him of an unaccount- 
 able nervousness, which was suddenly increased, when the eye 
 next to the scar from which he derived his appellation of Le Bala- 
 fre, began to be suffused with tears. He indignantly wiped away 
 the unwelcome suffusion, and had quite recovered as Rivol, Sec- 
 retary of State, entered, and requested him to attend on the King, 
 who awaited him in his own chamber. 
 
 Guise gayly flung his bonbonniere across the council-table, and 
 laughingly bade the grave counsellors scramble for the scattered 
 sweets. He started up, overturned his chair in so doing, drew his 
 thin mantle around him, and with cap and gloves in hand, waved 
 a farewell to the statesmen present. He passed through two 
 rooms, and closely followed by various of the archers, reached the 
 tapestried entrance to the King's cabinet. No one offered to raise 
 the arras for him. Guise lifted his own right arm to help himself 
 at the same time looking half-round at the archers who were near 
 him. At that moment, a dagger was buried in his breast, up to 
 the very hilt. The blow was delivered by Montsery, from behind. 
 The Duke let fall his hand to the pommel of his sword, when one 
 assassin clung to his legs, a second, also from behind, stabbed him 
 in the neck ; while a third passed his weapon through the Duke's 
 ribs. 
 
 Guise's first cry was, " Ho, friends !" His second, as Sarine 
 ran him through the lower part of the back, was, " Mercy, Jesus !" 
 He struggled faintly across the chamber, bleeding from a dozen 
 wounds, in every one of which sat death. The murderers hacked 
 at him as he staggered, and wildly yet feebly fought. All paused 
 for a moment, when he had reached the extreme end of the room, 
 
246 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 where he again attempted to raise his sword ; but in the act he 
 rolled over, stone dead, at the foot of the bed of Henri III. 
 
 At that moment the tapestry was raised, and the king, whisper- 
 ing " Is it done ?" approached the body, moodily remarking as he 
 gazed upon it, " He looks greater than he did when living." Upon 
 the person of the duke was found a manuscript memorandum, in 
 these words: — "To maintain a war in France, I should require 
 700,000 livres per month." This memorandum served in the 
 king's mind as a justification of the murder just committed by 
 his orders. The body was then unceremoniously rolled up in the 
 Turkey carpet on which it had fallen, was covered with quick 
 lime, and flung into the Loire. Some maimed rites were pre- 
 viously performed over it by Dourgin the royal chaplain, who 
 could not mutter the De Profundis without a running and terrified 
 commentary of "Christ! — the awful sight!" Guise's second 
 cardinal-brother and the Archbishop of Lyons were murdered on 
 the following day ; but the lesser victims were forgotten in the 
 fate which had fallen upon the more illustrious, yet certainly more 
 guilty personages. 
 
 The widow of Guise, soon after the dread event, gave birth to 
 a son, subsequently the Chevalier Louis de Guise. " The boy," 
 said the bereaved lady, "came into the world with his hands 
 clasped, as if praying for vengeance on the assassins of his father." 
 Every male member of the family whom the king could reach 
 was now subjected to arrest. The young heir of Balafre, Charles, 
 now fourth Duke of Guise, was now placed in close restriction in 
 the Castle of Tours, where, sleeping or waking, four living eyes 
 unceasingly watched him — voire meme allant a la garderobe — 
 but which eyes he managed to elude nevertheless. 
 
 In the meantime Rome excommunicated the murderer of her 
 champion. Paris put on mourning ; officials were placed in the 
 street to strip and scourge even ladies who ventured to appear 
 without some sign of sorrow. Wax effigies of the king were 
 brought into the churches, and frantically stabbed by the priests 
 at the altar. The priests then solemnly paraded the streets, chant- 
 ing as they went, " May God extinguish the Valois !" 
 
 The whole city broke into insurrection, and the brother of 
 Guise, the Duke de Mayenne, placed himself at the head of the 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 247 
 
 "league," whose object was the deposing of the king, and the 
 transferring of the crown to a child of Lorraine. In the contest 
 which ensued, Valois and Navarre united against the Guisards, 
 and carried victory with them wherever they raised their banners. 
 The exultation of Henri III. was only mitigated by the repeated 
 Papal summonses received by him to repair to Rome, and there 
 answer for his crime. 
 
 Henri of Navarre induced him to rather think of gaining Paris 
 than of mollifying the Pope ; and he was so occupied when the 
 double vengeance of the church and the house of Guise overtook 
 him in the very moment of victory. 
 
 The Duchess de Montpensier, sister of the slaughtered duke, 
 had made no secret of her intentions to have public revenge for 
 the deed privately committed, whereby she had lost a brother. 
 There was precaution enough taken that she should not approach 
 the royal army or the king's quarters ; but a woman and a priest 
 rendered all precautions futile. The somewhat gay duchess was 
 on unusually intimate terms with a young monk, named Jacques 
 Clement. This good Brother was a fanatic zealot for his church, 
 and a rather too ardent admirer of the duchess, who turned both 
 sentiments to her own especial purpose. She whispered in his 
 ears a promise, to secure the fulfilment of which, he received with 
 furious haste, the knife which was placed in his hands by the 
 handsomest woman in France. It is said that knife is still pre- 
 served, a precious treasure, at Rome. 
 
 However this may be, on the 1st of August, 1589, the young 
 Brother, with a weapon hid in the folds of his monkish gaberdine, 
 and with a letter in his hand, sought and obtained access to the 
 king. He went straightforward to his butcher's work, and had 
 scarcely passed beneath the roof of the royal tent before he 
 had buried the steel deep in the monarch's bosom. He turned 
 to fly with hot haste to the lady from whom he had received his 
 commission ; but a dozen swords and pikes thrust life out of him 
 ere he had made three steps in the direction of his promised 
 recompence. 
 
 She who had engaged herself to pay for the crime cared for 
 neither victim. She screamed indeed, but it was with a hysteric 
 joy that threatened to slay her, and which was only allayed by the 
 
248 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 thought that the last King of the Yalois race did not know that 
 he had died by a dagger directed by a sister of Guise. 
 
 In testimony of her 'exultation she distributed green scarfs, the 
 color of Lorraine, to the people of Paris. She brought up from 
 the provinces the mother of Clement, to whom was accorded the 
 distinction of a triumphal entry. Priests and people worshipped 
 the mother of the assassin as she passed wonderingly on her way ; 
 and they blasphemously saluted her with the chanted words, 
 " Blessed be the womb that bare him, aud the paps that gave him 
 suck." She was led to the seat of honor at the table of Guise, 
 and Rome sheltered the infamy of the assassin, and revealed its 
 own, by pronouncing his work to be a god-like act. By authority 
 of the Vatican, medals were struck in memory and honor of the 
 dead ; but the Huguenots who read thereon the murderer's pro- 
 fession and name — Frere Jacques Clement — ingeniously discov- 
 ered therein the anagrammatic interpretation " C'est Venfer qui 
 m'a cree"< — "It is hell that created me." 
 
 The last Valois, with his last breath, had named the Protestant 
 Henri of Xavarre as his legal successor to the throne ; but between 
 Henri and his inheritance there stood Rome and the Guise faction. 
 Then ensued the successive wars of the League, during which the 
 heavy Mayenne suffered successive defeats at the hands of Henri of 
 the snowy plume. TYliile the contest was raging, the people trusted 
 to the pulpits for their intelligence from the scene of action. From 
 those pulpits was daily uttered more mendacity in one hour than 
 finds expression in all the horse-fairs of the United Kingdom in a 
 year. When famine decimated those who lived within the walls, 
 the people were reduced to live upon a paste made from human 
 bones, and which they called "Madame de Montpensier's cake." 
 
 Henri of Xavarre, their deliverer, did not arrive before the gates 
 of Paris without trouble. In 1521, Charles of Guise, the young 
 Duke, had escaped most gallantly, in open day, from the Castle of 
 Tours, by sliding from the ramparts, down a rope, which simply 
 blistered his hands and made a rent in his hose. He was speedi- 
 ly accoutred and in the field, with Spain in his rear to help him. 
 Now, he was making a dash at Henri's person ; and, anon, leaping 
 from his camp-bed to escape him. At other times he was idle, 
 while his uncle Mayenne pursued the cherished object of their 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 249 
 
 house — that crown which was receding from them more swiftly 
 than ever. For the alert Bourbon, the slow and hard-drinking 
 Mayenne was no match. The latter thought once to catch the 
 former in his lady's bower, but the wakeful lover was gayly gallop- 
 ing back to Ins quarters before the trumpets of Mayenne had 
 sounded to " boot and saddle." " Mayenne," said the Pope, " sits 
 longer at table than Henri lies in bed." 
 
 The gates of Paris were open to Henri on the 21st of March, 
 1591. Old Cardinal Pellevi died of disgust and indignation, on 
 hearing of the fact. The Duchess of Montpensier, after tearing 
 her hair, and threatening to swoon, prudently concluded, with 
 Henry IV., not only her own peace, but that of her family. The 
 chief members of the house of Guise were admitted into places of 
 great trust, to the injury of more deserving individuals. The 
 young Duke de Guise affected a superabundant loyalty. In re- 
 turn, the King not only gave him the government of several chief 
 towns, but out of compliment to him forbade the exercise of Prot- 
 estant worship within the limits of the Duke's government ! Such 
 conduct was natural to a King, who to secure his throne had 
 abandoned his faith ; who lightly said that he had no cannon so 
 powerful as the canon of the mass, and who was destitute of most 
 virtues save courage and good-nature. The latter was abused by 
 those on whom it was lavished ; and the various assaults upon his 
 life were supposed to be directed by those very Guises, on whom 
 he had showered places, pensions, and pardons, which they were 
 constantly needing and continually deriding. 
 
 The young Duke of Guise enjoyed, among other appointments, 
 that of Governor of Marseilles. He was light-hearted, selfish, 
 vain, and cruel. He hanged his own old partisans in the city, as 
 enemies to the king ; and he made his name for ever infamous by 
 the seduction of the beautiful and noble orphan-girl, Marcelle de 
 Castellane, whom he afterward basely abandoned, and left to die 
 of hunger. He sent her a few broad pieces by the hands of a 
 lacquey ; but the tardy charity was spurned, and the poor victim 
 died. He had little time to think of her at the brilliant court of 
 the first Bourbon, where he and those of his house struggled to 
 maintain a reputation which had now little to support it, but the 
 memories of the past — and many of those were hardly worth ap- 
 
250 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 pealing to. He was a mere fine gentleman, bold withal, and there- 
 with intriguing ; ever hoping that the fortunes of his house might 
 once more turn and bring it near a throne, and in the meantime, 
 making himself remarkable for his vanity, his airs of greatness, 
 and his affectation. Brave as he was, he left his brothers, the 
 cardinal and chevalier, to draw their swords and settle the quarrels 
 which were constantly raging on disputed questions touching the 
 assumed Majesty of the House of Guise. 
 
 The streets of Paris formed the stage on which these bloody 
 tragedies were played, but they, and all other pretensions, were 
 suppressed by that irresistible putter-down of such nuisances — the 
 Cardinal de Richelieu. He used the sword of Guise as long as it 
 was needed, but when Charles became troublesome the Cardinal 
 not only banished him, but wounded the pride of his family by 
 placing garrisons in the hitherto sovereign duchy of Lorraine. 
 "When Cardinal Fleury subsequently annexed Lorraine itself to 
 the territory of France, the Guises thought the world was at an 
 end. The universe, however, survived the shock. 
 
 Duke Charles died in exile at Cune, near Sienne, in the year 
 1640. Of his ten children by the Duchess de Joyeuse, he left five 
 surviving. He was succeeded by Henri, the eldest, who was bishop 
 and cardinal. He had been raised to the episcopate while yet in 
 the arms of his wet-nurse ; and he was in frocks when on his long 
 curis was placed the scarlet hat of a cardinal. He was twenty 
 years of age when he became Duke of Guise. He at once flung 
 away all he possessed of his religious profession — its dress and 
 titles, and walked abroad, spurs on his heels, a plume in his cap, 
 and a long sword and a bad heart between ! 
 
 The whole life of this chivalrous scoundrel was a romance, no 
 portion of which reflects any credit on the hero. He had scarcely 
 reached the age of manhood, when he entered into a contract of 
 marriage with the beautiful Anne of Gonzaga. He signed the 
 compact, not in ink, but with his own blood, calling Heaven to 
 witness, the while, that he would never address a vow to any other 
 lady. The breath of perjury had scarcely passed his lips when he 
 married the Countess of Bossu, and he immediately abandoned 
 her to sun himself in the eyes of Mademoiselle de Pons — an im- 
 perious mistress, who squandered the property he lavished on her, 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 251 
 
 and boxed the ex-cardinal's ears, when he attempted, with degra- 
 ding humility, to remonstrate with her for bringing down ruin upon 
 his estate. 
 
 He was as disloyal to his King as to his " lady ;" he tampered 
 with rebellion, was sentenced to death, and was pardoned. But a 
 state of decent tranquillity agreed ill with his constitution. To 
 keep that and his nerves from rustkig, he one day drew his sword 
 in the street, upon the son of Coligny, whose presence seemed a 
 reproach to him, and whom he slew on the spot. He wiped his 
 bloody rapier on his mantle, and betook himself for a season to 
 Rome, where he intrigued skilfully, but fruitlessly, in order to ob- 
 tain the tiara for the brother of Mazarin. Apathy would now 
 have descended upon him, but for a voice from the city of Naples, 
 which made his swelling heart beat with a violence that almost 
 threatened to kill. 
 
 Masaniello had just concluded his brief and mad career. The 
 Neapolitans were not, on that account, disposed to submit again to 
 Spain. They were casting about for a King, when Guise present- 
 ed himself. This was in the year 1 647. He left France in a frail 
 felucca, with a score of bold adventurers wearing the colors of 
 Lorraine, intertwined with " buff," in compliment to the Duke's 
 mistress. The Church blessed the enterprise. The skiff sped 
 unharmed through howling storms and thundering Spanish fleets ; 
 and when the Duke stepped ashore at Naples, and mounted a 
 charger, the shouting populace who preceded him, burnt incense 
 before the new-comer, as if he had been a coming god. 
 
 For love and bravery, this Guise was unequalled. He con- 
 quered all his foes, and made vows to all the ladies. In love he 
 lost, however, all the fruits of bravery. Naples was but a mock 
 Sardanapalian court, when the Spaniards at length mustered 
 strongly enough to attack the new, bold, but enervated King. 
 They took him captive, and held him, during four years, a prisoner 
 in Spain. He gained liberty by a double lie, the common coin of 
 Guise. He promised to reveal to the Court of Madrid the secrets 
 of the Court of Paris ; and bound himself by bond and oath never 
 to renew his attempt on Naples. His double knavery, however, 
 brought him no profit. At length, fortune seeming to disregard 
 the greatness of his once highly-favored house, this restless repro- 
 
252 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 bate gradually sunk into a mere court beau, passing his time in 
 powdering his peruke, defaming reputations, and paying profane 
 praise to the patched and painted* ladies of the palace. He died 
 before old age, like most of the princes of his house : and in his 
 fiftieth year this childless man left his dignity and an evil name to 
 his nephew, Louis Joseph. 
 
 The sixth Duke bore his greatness meekly and briefly. He 
 was a kind-hearted gentleman, whose career of unobtrusive useful- 
 ness was cut short by small-pox in 1671. When he died, there 
 lay in the next chamber an infant in the cradle. This was his little 
 son Joseph, not yet twelve months old, and all unconscious of his 
 loss, in a father ; or of his gain, in a somewhat dilapidated coronet. 
 On his young brow that symbol of his earthly rank rested during 
 only four years. The little Noble then fell a victim to the disease 
 which had carried off his sire, and made of himself a Duke — the 
 last, the youngest, the most innocent, and the happiest of the race. 
 
 During a greater portion of the career of the Dukes, priest and 
 swordsman in the family had stood side by side, each menacing to 
 the throne ; the one in knightly armor, the other in the dread pan- 
 oply of the Church. Of the seven ducal chieftains of the house, 
 there is only one who can be said to have left behind him a repu- 
 tation for harmlessness ; and perhaps that was because he lived at 
 a time when he had not the power to be offensive. The boy on 
 the mule, in 1506, and the child in the cradle, in 1676, are two 
 pleasant extremes of a line where all between is, indeed, fearfully 
 attractive, but of that quality also which might make not only men 
 but angels weep. 
 
 It must be confessed that the Dukes of Guise played for a high 
 prize ; and lost it. More than once, however, they were on the 
 very point of grasping the attractive but delusive prize. If they 
 were so near triumph, it was chiefly through the co-operation of 
 their respective brothers, the proud and able Cardinals. The 
 Dukes were representatives of brute force ; the Cardinals, of that 
 which is far stronger, power of intellect. The former often spoiled 
 their cause by being demonstrative. The latter never trusted to 
 words when silver served their purpose equally well. When they 
 did speak, it was with effective brevity. We read of a Lacede- 
 monian who was fined for employing three words to express what 
 
THE FORTUNES OP A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 253 
 
 might have been as effectually stated in two- No churchman of 
 the house of Guise ever committed the fault of the Lacedemonian. 
 
 Cardinal John of Lorraine was the brother of the first Duke 
 Claude. When the latter was a boy, riding his mule into France, 
 John was the young Bishop-coadjutor of Metz. He was little 
 more than two years old when he was first appointed to this re- 
 sponsible office. He was a Cardinal before he was out of his 
 teens ; and in his own person was possessed of twelve bishoprics 
 and archbishoprics. Of these, however, he modestly retained but 
 three, namely, Toul, Narbonne, and Alby — as they alone hap- 
 pened to return revenues worth acceptance. Not that he was 
 selfish, seeing that he subsequently applied for, and received the 
 Archbishopric of Rheims, which he kindly held for his nephew 
 Charles, who was titular thereof, at the experienced age of ten. 
 His revenues were enormous, and he was for ever in debt. He 
 was one of the most skilful negotiators of his time ; but whether 
 deputed to emperor or pope, he was seldom able to commence his 
 journey until he had put in pledge three or four towns, in order 
 to raise money to defray his expenses. His zeal for what he un- 
 derstood as religion was manifested during the short but bloody 
 campaign against the Protestants of Alsatia, where he accompa- 
 nied his brother. At the side of the Cardinal, on the field of 
 battle, stood the Apostolic Commissary, and a staff of priestly 
 aides-de-camp. While some of these encouraged the orthodox 
 troops to charge the Huguenots, the principal personages kept 
 their hands raised to Heaven ; and when the pennons of the army 
 of Reformers had all gone down before the double cross of Lor- 
 raine, the Cardinal and his ecclesiastical staff rode to the church 
 of St. Nicholas and sang Te Deum laudamus. 
 
 The chivalrous Cardinal was another man in his residence of 
 the Hotel de Cluny. Of this monastery he made a mansion, in 
 which a Sybarite might have dwelt without complaining. It was 
 embellished, decorated, and furnished with a gorgeousness that had 
 its source at once in his blind prodigality, his taste for the arts, 
 and his familiar patronage of artists. The only thing not to be 
 found in. this celebrated mansion was the example of a good life. 
 But how could this example be found in a prelate who assumed 
 and executed the office of instructing the maids of honor in their 
 
254 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 delicate duties. Do Thou says it was an occupation for which he 
 was pre-eminently fitted ; and Brantome pauses, in his gay illus- 
 trations of the truth of this assertion, to remark with indignation, 
 that if the daughters of noble houses arrived at court, endowed 
 with every maiden virtue, Cardinal John was the man to despoil 
 them of their dowry. 
 
 He was, nevertheless, not deficient in tastes and pursuits of a 
 refined nature. He was learned himself, aud he loved learning 
 in others. His purse, when there was anything in it, was at the ' 
 service of poor scholars and of sages with great purposes in view. 
 He who deemed the slaughter of Protestant peasants a thing to 
 thank God for, had something like a heart for clever sneerers at 
 Papistry and also for Protestants of talent. Thus he pleaded the 
 cause of the amphibious Erasmus, extended his protection to the 
 evangelical Clement Marot, and laughed and drank with Rabelais, 
 the caustic cure of Meudon. He was, moreover, the boon com- 
 panion of Francis L, a man far less worthy of his intimacy than 
 the equivocating Erasmus, the gentle Marot, or roystering Rabe- 
 lais, who painted the manners of the court and church of his day, 
 in his compound characters of Gargantua and Panurge. 
 
 He was a liberal giver, but he gave with an ostentation for 
 which there is no warrant in the gospel. At one period of his 
 life he walked abroad with a game-bag full of crowns slung from 
 his neck. On passing beggars he bestowed, without counting, a 
 rich alms, requesting prayers in return. He was known as the 
 " game-bag Cardinal." On one occasion, when giving largesse to 
 a blind mendicant in Rome, the latter was so astonished at the 
 amount of the gift, that, pointing to the giver, he exclaimed, " If 
 thou art not Jesus Christ, thou art John of Lorraine." 
 
 He was bold in his gallantry. When sent by Francis I. to 
 negotiate some political business with the pope, he passed through 
 Piedmont, where he was for a while the guest of the Duke and 
 Duchess of Savoy. The duchess, on the cardinal being presented, 
 gravely offered her hand (she was a Portuguese princess) to be 
 kissed. John of Lorraine, however, would not stoop so low, and 
 made for her lips. A struggle ensued, which was maintained with 
 rude persistance on one side, and with haughty and offended vigor 
 on the other, until her highness's head, being firmly grasped within 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 255 
 
 his eminence's arm, the cardinal kissed the ruffled princess two or 
 three times on the mouth, and then, with an exultant laugh, re- 
 leased her. 
 
 The second cardinal of this branch, Charles of Lorraine, was 
 brother of the second duke. He was the greatest man of his 
 family, and the most powerful of his age. His ambition was to 
 administer the finances of France, and he did so during three 
 reigns, with an annual excess of expenditure over income, of two 
 millions and a half. He was rather dishonest than incapable. 
 His enemies threatened to make him account ; he silenced them 
 with the sound of the tocsin of St. Bartholomew, and when the 
 slaughter was over he merrily asked for the presence of the ac- 
 cusers who had intended to make him refund. 
 
 He was an accomplished hypocrite, and at heart a religious 
 reformer. At last he acknowledged to the leaders of the reform- 
 atory movement, whom he admitted to his familiarity, that the 
 Reformation was necessary and warrantable ; and yet policy made 
 of him the most savage enemy that Protestantism ever had in 
 France. He urged on the king to burn noble heretics rather than 
 the common people ; and when Henri was touched with compas- 
 sion, in his dying moments, for some Protestant prisoners capitally 
 condemned, the cardinal told him that the feeling came of the 
 devil, and that it was better they should perish. And they 
 perished. 
 
 He introduced the Inquisition into France, and was made Grand 
 Inquisitor at the moment the country was rejoicing for the recov- 
 ery of Calais from the English. And this was the man who, at 
 the Council of Trent, advocated the celebration of divine worship 
 in the vernacular tongue. He was the friend of liberty to the 
 Gallican church, but he took the other side on finding that liberal 
 advocacy periled his chances of being pope. The living pope 
 used and abused him. " I am scandalized," said his holiness, " at 
 finding you still in the enjoyment of the revenues of so many 
 sees." " I would resign them all," said the cardinal, " for a single 
 bishopric." " Which bishopric ?" asked the pope. " Marry !" 
 exclaimed Cardinal Charles, " the bishopric of Rome." 
 
 He was as haughty as he was aspiring. The Guise had induced 
 the weak Anthony of Navarre to turn Romanist ; but the cardinal 
 
256 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 did not treat that king with more courtesy on that account. One 
 frosty morning, not only did the princely priest keep the mountain 
 king tarrying at his garden gate for an audience, but when he 
 went down to his majesty, he listened, all befurred as he was' to 
 the shivering monarch who humbly preferred his suit, cap in hand. 
 
 He was covetous and haughty, but he sometimes found his 
 match. His niece, Mary Stuart, had quarreled with Catherine 
 de Medicis, whose especial wrath had been excited by Mary's 
 phrase applied to Catherine, of " The Florentine tradeswoman." 
 The Scottish Queen resolved, after this quarrel, to repair to the 
 North. The cardinal was at her side when she was examining 
 her jewels, previously to their being packed up. He tenderly 
 remarked that the sea was dangerous, the jewels costly, and that 
 his niece could not do better than leave them in his keeping. 
 " Good uncle," said the vivacious Mary, " I and my jewels travel 
 together. If I trust one to the sea, I may the other ; and there- 
 with, adieu !" The cardinal bit his lips and blessed her. 
 
 Ranke is puzzled where to find the principal author of the mas- 
 sacre of St. Bartholomew. There is no difficulty in the matter. 
 The Guises had appealed to the chances of battle to overcome 
 their chief adversaries in the kingdom. But for every Huguenot 
 father slain, there arose as many filial avengers as he had sons. 
 The causes of quarrel were individual as well as general. A Hu- 
 guenot had slain the second Duke, and his widow was determined 
 to be avenged. The Cardinal was wroth with the King for re- 
 taining Protestant archers in his body-guard. The archers took 
 an unclean vengeance, and defiled the pulpit in the Chapel Royal, 
 wherefrom the Cardinal was accustomed to denounce the doctrine 
 of their teachers. His Eminence formed the confederacy by 
 which it was resolved to destroy the enemy at a blow. To the 
 general causes, I need not allude. The plot itself was formed in 
 Oliver Clisson's house, in Paris, known as " the Hotel of Mercy." 
 But the representatives of Rome and Spain, united with those of 
 France, met upon the frontier, and there made the final arrange- 
 ments which were followed by such terrible consequences. When 
 the stupendous deed was being done, the Cardinal was absent from 
 France ; but he fairly took upon himself the guilt, when he confer- 
 red the hand of his illegitimate daughter Anne d'Arne on the 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 257 
 
 officer Besme whose dagger had given the first mortal stab to 
 Coligny, the chief of the immolated victims of that dreadful day — 
 and Rome approved. 
 
 As a public controversialist he shone in his dispute with Beza. 
 Of his pride, we have an illustration in what is recorded of him in 
 the Council of Trent. The Spanish embassador had taken a place, 
 at mass, above that of the embassador from France. Thereupon, 
 the reverend Cardinal raised such a commotion in the cathedral, 
 and dwelt so loudly and strongly in expletives, that divine worship 
 was suspended, and the congregation broke up in most admired 
 disorder. 
 
 So at the coronation, in the Abbey of St. Dennis, of the Queen 
 of Charles IX. The poor, frail, Austrian Princess Elizabeth, 
 after being for hours on her knees, declared her incapacity for re- 
 maining any longer without some material support from food or 
 wine. The Cardinal declared that such an irreligious innovation 
 was not to be thought of. He stoutly opposed, well-fed man that 
 he was, the supplying of any refreshment to the sinking Queen ; 
 and it was only when he reflected that her life might be imperiled 
 that he consented to "the smallest quantity of something very 
 light," being administered to her. 
 
 He was the only man of his family who was not possessed of the 
 knightly virtue of bravery. He was greatly afraid of being as- 
 sassinated. In council, he was uncourteous. Thus, he once ac- 
 cused the famous Chancellor le Hospital of wishing to be "the cock 
 of the assembly," and when the grave chancellor protested against 
 such language, the Cardinal qualified him as " an old ram." It 
 may be added that, if he feared the dagger directed by private 
 vengeance, he believed himself protected by the guardianship of 
 Heaven, which more than once, as he averred, carried him off in 
 clouds and thunder, when assassins were seeking him. He was 
 wily enough to have said this, in order to deter all attempts at vio- 
 lence directed against himself. 
 
 He died edifyingly, kissed Catherine de Medicis, and was be- 
 lieved by the latter, to mysteriously haunt her, long after his 
 death. The real footing on which these two personages stood 
 has yet to be discovered by curious inquiries. 
 
 The Cardinal-brother of the third Duke, Louis of Lorraine, 
 17 
 
258 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 loved good living, and was enabled at an early age to indulge his 
 propensities, out of the rich revenues which he derived from his 
 numerous ecclesiastical preferments. He held half a dozen ab- 
 beys while he was yet in his cradle ; and he was a bishop at the 
 mature age of eighteen. Just before his death, in 1598, when he 
 was about fifty years of age, he resigned his magnificent church 
 appointments, in favor of his nephew and namesake, who was to 
 be a future Cardinal at the side of the fourth Duke. Louis was 
 a man of ability and of wit. He chose a device for his own 
 shield of arms. It consisted of nine zeros, with this apt motto : 
 " Hoc per se nihil est ; sed si minimum addideris, maximum erit," 
 intending, it is said, to imply that man Avas nothing till grace was 
 given him. He was kindly-dispositioned, loved his ease, was 
 proud of his church, and had a passion for the bottle. That 
 was his religion. His private life was not marked by worse 
 traits than those that characterized Ins kinsmen in the priest- 
 hood. He showed his affection for his mother after a truly filial 
 fashion, bequeathing to her all his estates, in trust, to pay his 
 debts. 
 
 The third duke had a second cardinal-brother, known as the 
 Cardinal de Guise, who was murdered by Henri III. He was 
 an intriguer ; but as brave as any knight of his family. It was 
 long before the king could find men willing to strike a priest ; and 
 when they were found, they approached him again and again, be- 
 fore they could summon nerve wherewith to smite him. After all, 
 this second murder at Blois was effected by stratagem. The car- 
 dinal was requested to accompany a messenger to the royal 
 presence. He complied with some misgiving, but when he found 
 himself in a dark corridor with four frowning soldiers, he under- 
 stood his doom ; requested a few moments respite to collect his 
 thoughts ; and then, enveloping his head in his outer robe, bade 
 them execute their bloody commission. He was instantly slain, 
 without offering resistance, or uttering a word. 
 
 This cardinal was father of five illegitimate sons, of whom the 
 most celebrated was the Baron of Ancerville, or, as he proudly 
 designated himself, " Bastard of Guise." 
 
 By the side of the son of Balafre, Charles, the fourth duke, 
 there stood the last cardinal-brother who was able to serve his 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 259 
 
 house, and whose character presents any circumstance of note. 
 This cardinal, if he loved anything more than the bottle, was 
 fondest of a battle. He characteristically lost his life by both. 
 He was present at the siege of St. Jean d'Angely, held by the 
 Protestants in the year 1621. It was on the 20th of May; and 
 the sun was shining with a power not known to our severe springs. 
 The cardinal fought like a fiend, and swore with more than fiend- 
 ish capacity. The time was high noon, and he himself was in the 
 noontide of his wondrous vigor, some thirty years of age. He 
 was laying about him in the bloody melee which occurred in the 
 suburb, when he paused for awhile, panting for breath and stream- 
 ing with perspiration. He called for a flask of red wine, which 
 he had scarcely quaffed when he was seized with raging fever, 
 which carried him off within a fortnight. He was so much more 
 addicted to knightly than to priestly pursuits, that, at the time of 
 his death, a negotiation was being carried on to procure from the 
 pope permission for the cardinal to give up to his lay-brother, the 
 Due de Chevreuse, all his benefices, and to receive in return the 
 duke's governorship of Auvergne. He was for ever in the saddle, 
 and never more happy than when he saw another before him with 
 a resolute foe firmly seated therein. He lived the life of a soldier 
 of fortune, or knight-errant ; and when peace temporarily reigned, 
 he rode over the country with a band of followers, in search of 
 adventures, and always found them at the point of their swords. 
 He left the altar to draw on his boots, gird his sword to his hip, 
 and provoke his cousin De Nevers to a duel, by striking him in 
 the face. The indignant young noble regretted that the profession 
 of his insulter covered the latter with impunity, and recommended 
 him, at the same time, to abandon it, and to give De Nevers satis- 
 faction. " To the devil I have sent it already !" said the exem- 
 plary cardinal, " when I flung off my frock, and belted on my 
 sword :" and the two kinsmen would have had their weapons in 
 each other's throat, but for the royal officers, who checked their 
 Christian amusement. 
 
 This roystering cardinal, who was interred with more pomp 
 than if he had been a great saint, or a merely honest man, left 
 five children. Their mother was Charlotte des Escar. They 
 were recognised as legitimate, on allegation that their parents 
 
260 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 had been duly married, on papal dispensation. He was the 
 last of the cardinals, and was as good a soldier as any of the 
 knights. 
 
 Neither the pride nor the pretensions of the house expired with 
 either Dukes or Cardinals. There were members of the family 
 whose arrogance was all the greater because they were not of the 
 direct line of succession. Their great ambition in little things was 
 satisfied with the privilege granted to the ladies of Guise, namely, 
 the one which they held in common with royal princesses, at being 
 presented at court previous to their marriage. This ambition 
 gained for them, however, the hatred of the nobles and the princes 
 of the Church, and at length caused a miniature insurrection in 
 the palace at Versailles. 
 
 The occasion was the grand ball given in honor of the nuptials 
 of Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin. Louis XV. had announced 
 that he would open the brilliant scene by dancing a minuet with 
 Mile, de Lorraine, sister of the Prince de Lambesc. The uproar 
 that ensued was terrific. The entire body of nobility protested 
 against such marked precedence being allowed to the lady in ques- 
 tion. The Archbishop of Rheims placed himself at the head of 
 the opposing movement ; and, assembling the indignant peerage, 
 this successor of the Apostles, in company with his episcopal broth- 
 er from Noyon, came to the solemnly important resolution, that 
 between the princes of the blood-royal and haute noblesse there 
 could be no intermediate rank ; and that Mile, de Lorraine, con- 
 sequently, could not take precedence of the female members of the 
 aristocracy, who had been presented. A memorial was drawn up. 
 The entire nobility, old and new, signed it eagerly ; and the King 
 was informed that if he did not rescind his determination, no lady 
 would dance at the ball after the minuet in question had been per- 
 formed. The King exerted himself to overcome the opposition : 
 but neither bishops nor baronesses would give way. The latter, 
 on the evening of the ball, walked about the grand apartments in 
 undress, expressed loudly their resolution not to dance, and re- 
 ceived archiepiscopal benison for their pious obstinacy. The mat- 
 ter was finally arranged by compromise, whereby the Dauphin and 
 the Count dArtois were to select partners among the nobility, and 
 not, as was de rigueur, according to the law of minuets, among 
 
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY. 261 
 
 princesses of their own rank. The hour for opening the famous 
 ball was retarded in order to give the female insurrectionists time 
 to dress, and ultimately all went off a merveille I 
 
 With the Prince de Lambesc above-named, the race of Guise 
 disappeared altogether from the soil of France. He was colonel 
 of the cavalry regiment, Royal Allemand, which in 1789 came 
 into collision with the people. The Prince was engaged, with his 
 men, in dispersing a seditious mob. He struck one of the most 
 conspicuous of the rioters with the flat of his sword. This blow, 
 dealt by a Guise, was the first given in the great Revolution, and 
 it helped to deprive Louis XVI. of his crown. The Prince de 
 Lambesc was compelled to fly from the country, to escape the in- 
 dignation of the people. Nearly three centuries before, his great 
 ancestor, the boy of the mule, had entered the kingdom, and found- 
 ed a family which increased in numbers and power against the 
 throne, and against civil and religious liberty. And now, the sole 
 survivor of the many who had sprung from this branch of Lor- 
 raine, as proud, too, as the greatest of his house, having raised his 
 finger against the freedom of the mob, was driven into exile, to 
 seek refuge for a time, and a grave for age, on the banks of the 
 distant Danube. 
 
 When Cardinal Fleury annexed the Duchy of Lorraine to 
 France, it was by arrangement with Austria; according to which, 
 Francis, Duke of Lorraine, received in exchange for his Duchy, 
 the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the hand of Maria Theresa. 
 Their heirs form the imperial house of Hapsburgh-Lorraine. 
 Such of my readers as have visited Nancy, the capital of old Lor- 
 raine, will remember there the round chapel near what is left of 
 the old palace of the old Dukes. This chapel contains the tombs 
 of the principal of the twenty-nine Dukes who ruled sovereignly 
 in Lorraine. The expense of supporting the service and fabric, 
 altar and priests, connected with this chapel, is sustained entirely 
 by Austria. It is the only remnant preserved of the Lorraine 
 sovereignty of the olden time. The priests and employes in the 
 edifice speak of Hapsburgh-Lorraine as their house, to which they 
 owe exclusive homage. When I heard expression given to this 
 sentiment, I was standing in front of the tomb of that famous 
 etcher, old Jean Callot. The latter was a native of Nancy ; and 
 
262 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 I could almost fancy that his merry-looking lip curled with scorn 
 at the display of this rag of pride in behalf of the house of Lor- 
 raine. 
 
 "With the story of part of that house I fear I may have detained 
 the reader too long. I will tell more briefly the shifting fortunes 
 of a material house, the knightly edifice of Rambouillet. 
 
THE RECORD OF RaMBOUILLET. 263 
 
 THE RECORD OF RAMBOUILLET. 
 
 "Imagine that this castle were your court, 
 And that you lay, for pleasure, here a space, 
 Not of compulsion or necessity." — Kit Marlowe. 
 
 Rambouillet is an old chateau where feudal knights once 
 lived like little kings. In its gardens Euphuism reigned supreme. 
 It is a palace, in whose chambers monarchs have feasted, and at 
 w T hose gates they have asked, when fugitives, for water and a crust 
 of bread. It commenced its career as a cradle of knights ; it is 
 finishing it as an asylum for the orphan children of warriors. The 
 commencement and finale are not unworthy of one another ; but, 
 between the two, there have been some less appropriate disposals 
 of this old chevalier's residence. For a short period it was some- 
 thing between Hampton Court and Rosherville. In the very place 
 where the canons of the Sainte Chapelle were privileged to kiss 
 the cheeks of the Duchess of Burgundy, the denizens of the Fau- 
 bourg St. Antoine could revel, if they could only pay for their 
 sport. "Where the knightly D'Amaurys held their feudal state, 
 where King Francis followed the chase, and the Chevalier Florian 
 sang, and Penthievre earned immortality by the practice of heav- 
 enly virtues ; where Louis enthroned Du Barry, and Napoleon 
 presided over councils, holding the destiny of thrones in the balance 
 of his will, there the sorriest mechanic had, with a few francs in 
 his hand, the right of entrance. The gayest lorettes of the capital 
 smoked their cigarettes w T here Julie D'Angennes fenced with love : 
 and the bower of queens and the refuge of an empress rang with 
 echoes, born of light-heartedness and lighter wine. Louis Napo- 
 leon has, however, established a better order of things. 
 
 To a Norman chief, of knightly character, if not of knightly 
 
264 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 title, and to the Norman tongue, JRaboufflet, as it used to be 
 written, or the " Rabbit warren," owes the name given to the 
 palace, about thirteen leagues from Paris, and to the village which 
 clusters around it. The former is now a quaint and confused pile, 
 the chief tower of which alone is now older than the days of 
 Hugues Capet. Some authors describe the range of buildings as 
 taking the form of a horseshoe ; but the hoof would be indescri- 
 bable to which a shoe so shaped could be fittingly applied. The 
 changes and additions have been as much without end as without 
 taste. In its present architectural entirety it wears as motley an 
 aspect as Cceur de Lion might, were he to walk down Pall Mall 
 with a modern paletot over his suit of complete steel. 
 
 The early masters of Rambouillet were a knightly, powerful 
 but uninteresting race. It is sufficient to record of the chivalric 
 D'Amaurys that they held it, to the satisfaction of few people but 
 themselves, from 1003 to 1317. Further record these sainted 
 proprietors require not. We will let them sleep on undisturbedly, 
 their arms crossed on their breast, in the peace of a well-merited 
 oblivion. JRequiescat ! 
 
 One relic of the knightly days, however, survived to the period 
 of the first French Revolution. In the domain of Rambouillet 
 was the fief of Montorgueil. It was held by the prior of St. 
 Thomas d'Epernon, on the following service : the good prior was 
 bound to present himself yearly at the gate of Rambouillet, bare- 
 headed, with a garland on his brow, and mounted on a piebald 
 horse, touching whom it was bad service if the animal had not 
 four white feet. 
 
 The prior, fully armed like a knight, save that his white gloves 
 were of a delicate texture, carried a flask of wine at his saddle- 
 bow. In one hand he held a cake, to the making of which had 
 gone a bushel of flour — an equal measure of wheat was also the 
 fee of the lord. The officers of the latter examined narrowly into 
 the completeness of the service. If they pronounced it imperfect 
 the prior of Epernon was mulcted of the revenues of his fief for 
 the year ensuing. 
 
 In later days the ceremony lost much of its meaning ; but down 
 to the period of its extinction, the wine, the cake, and the garland, 
 were never wanting ; and the maidens of Rambouillet were said 
 
THE RECORD OF RAMBOUILLET. 265 
 
 to be more exacting than the baronial knights themselves, from 
 whom many of them were descended. The festival was ever a 
 joyous one, as became a feudal lord, whose kitchen fireplace was 
 of such dimensions that a horseman might ride into it, and skim 
 the pot as he stood in his stirrups. 
 
 It is a singular thing that scarcely a monarch has had anything 
 to do with the knightly residence of Rambouillet, but mischance 
 has befallen him. The kings were unjust to the knights, and the 
 latter found for the former a Nemesis. Francis I. was hunting in 
 the woods of Rambouillet when he received the news of the death 
 of Henry VIII. that knight-sovereign, with whom he had strug- 
 gled on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. With the news, he re- 
 ceived a shock, which the decay sprung from various excesses 
 could not resist. He entered the chateau as the guest of the 
 Chevalier d'Angennes, in whose family the proprietorship then 
 resided. The chamber is still shown wherein he died, roaring 
 in agony, and leaving proof of its power over him, in the 
 pillow, which, in mingled rage and pain, he tore into strips with 
 his teeth. 
 
 The French author, Leon Gozlau, has given a full account of 
 the extraordinary ceremonies which took place in honor of Fran- 
 cis after his death. In front of the bed on which lay the body of 
 the king, says M. Gozlau, "was erected an altar covered with 
 embroidered cloth ; on this stood two gold candlesticks, bearing 
 two lights from candles of the whitest wax. The cardinals, pre- 
 lates, knights, gentlemen, and officers, whose duty it was to keep 
 watch, were stationed around the catafalque, seated on chairs of 
 cloth of gold. During the eleven days that the ceremony lasted, 
 the strictest etiquette of service was observed about the king, as 
 if he had been a living monarch in presence of his court. His 
 table was regularly laid out for dinner, by the side of his bed. 
 A cardinal blessed the food. A gentleman in waiting presented 
 the ewer to the figure of the dead king. A knight offered him 
 the cup mantling with wine : and another wiped his lips and fingers. 
 These functions, with many others, took place by the solemn and 
 subdued light of the funeral torches." 
 
 The after ceremonies were quite as curious and extraordinarily 
 magnificent ; but it is unnecessary to rest upon them. A king, in 
 
266 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 not much better circumstances than Francis, just before his death, 
 slept in the castle for one night in the year 1588. It was a night 
 in May, and the knight proprietor Jean d'Angennes, was celebra- 
 ting the marriage of his daughter. The ceremony was interrupted 
 by a loud knocking at the castle gates. The wary Jean looked 
 first at the clamorous visitors through the wicket, whence he de- 
 scried Henri III. flurried, yet laughing, seated in an old carriage, 
 around which mustered dusty horsemen, grave cavaliers, and cour- 
 tiers scantily attired. Some had their points untrussed, and many 
 a knight was without his boots. An illustrious company, in fact ; 
 but there were not two nobles in their united purses. Jean threw 
 open his portals to a king and his knights flying from De Guise. 
 The latter had got possession of Paris, and Henri and his friends 
 had escaped in order to establish the regal authority at Chartres. 
 The two great adversaries met at Blois : and after the assassina- 
 tion of Guise, the king, with his knights and courtiers, gallopped 
 gayly past Rambouillet on his return to Paris, to profit by his 
 own wickedness, and the folly of his trusty and well-beloved cousin, 
 the duke. 
 
 Not long before this murder was committed, in 1588, the Hotel 
 Pisani in Paris was made jubilant by the birth of that Catherine 
 de Yivonnes, who was at once both lovely and learned. She lived 
 to found that school of lingual purists whose doings are so pleas- 
 antly caricatured in the Precieuses Ridicules of Moliere. Cathe- 
 rine espoused that noble chevalier, Charles d'Angennes, Lord of 
 Rambouillet, who was made a marquis for her sake. The cheva- 
 lier's lady looked upon marriage rather as a closing act of life than 
 otherwise ; but then hers had been a busy youth. In her second 
 lustre she knew as many languages as a lustrum has years. Ere 
 lier fourth had expired, her refined spirit and her active intellect 
 were disgusted and weary with the continual sameness and the 
 golden emptiness of the court. She cared little to render homage 
 to a most Christian king who disregarded the precepts of Chris- 
 tianity ; or to be sullied by homage from a monarch, which could 
 not be rendered without insult to a virtuous woman. Young 
 Catherine preferred, in the summer eve, to lie under the shadow 
 of her father's trees, which once reared a world of leafy splendor 
 on the spot now occupied by the Palais Royal. There she read 
 
THE RECORD OF RAMBOUILLET. 267 
 
 works coined by great minds. During the long winter evenings 
 she lay in stately ceremony upon her bed, an unseemly custom of 
 the period, and there, surrounded by chevaliers, wits, and philoso- 
 phers, enjoyed and encouraged the " cudgelling of brains." At 
 her suggestion the old hotel was destroyed, and after her designs 
 a new one built ; and when, in place of the old dark panelling, ob- 
 scurely seen by casements that kept out the light, she covered the 
 walls of her reception-rooms with sky-blue velvet, and welcomed 
 the sun to shine upon them, universal France admiringly pro- 
 nounced her mad, incontinently caught the infection, and broke out 
 into an incurable disease of fancy and good taste. 
 
 The fruit of the union above spoken of was abundant, but the 
 very jewel in that crown of children, the goodliest arrow in the 
 family quiver, was that Julie d'Angennes who shattered the hearts 
 of all the amorous chevaliers of France, and whose fame has, per- 
 haps, eclipsed that of her mother. Her childhood was passed at 
 the feet of the most eminent men in France ; not merely aristo- 
 cratic knights, but as eminent wits and philosophers. By the side 
 of her cradle, Balzac enunciated his polished periods, and Marot 
 liis tuneful rhymes, Voiture his conceits, and Vaugelas his learn- 
 ing. She lay in the arms of Armand Duplessis, then almost as 
 innocent as the little angel who unconsciously smiled on that future 
 ruthless Cardinal de Richelieu ; and her young ear heard the ele- 
 vated measure of Corneille's " Melite." To enumerate the circles 
 which was wont to assemble within the H6tel Rambouillet in Paris, 
 or to loiter in the gardens and hills of the country chateau, whose 
 history I am sketching, would occupy more space than can be de- 
 voted to such purpose. The circle comprised parties who were 
 hitherto respectively exclusive. Knights met citizen wits, to the 
 great edification of the former ; and Rambouillet afforded an asylum 
 to the persecuted of all parties. They who resisted Henry IV. 
 found refuge within its hospitable walls, and many nobles and chev- 
 aliers who survived the bloody oppression of Richelieu, sought 
 therein solace, and balm for their lacerated souls. 
 
 Above all, Madame de Rambouillet effected the social congre- 
 gation of the two sexes. Women were brought to encounter male 
 wits, sometimes to conquer, always to improve them. The title to 
 enter was, worth joined with ability. The etiquette was pedanti- 
 
268 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 cally strict, as may be imagined by the case of Voiture, who, on 
 one occasion, after conducting Julie through a suite of rooms, kissed 
 her hand on parting from her, and was very near being expelled 
 for ever from Rambouillet, as the reward of his temerity. Voiture 
 subsequently went to Africa. On his return, he was not admitted 
 to the illustrious circle, but on condition that he narrated his ad- 
 ventures, and to these the delighted assembly listened, all attired 
 as gods and goddesses, and gravely addressing each other as such. 
 Madame de Rambouillet presided over all as Diana, and the com- 
 pany did her abundant homage. This, it is true, was for the 
 nonce ; but there was a permanent travesty notwithstanding. It 
 was the weak point of this assembly that not only was every mem- 
 ber of it called by a feigned, generally a Greek, name, but the 
 same rule was applied to most men and things beyond it ; nay, the 
 very oaths, for there were little expletives occasionally fired off in 
 ecstatic moments, were all by the heathen gods. Thus, as a sam- 
 ple, France was Greece. Paris was Athens ; and the Place Roy- 
 ale was only known at Rambouillet as the Place Dorique. The 
 name of Madame de Rambouillet was Arthemise ; that of Made- 
 moiselle de Scudery was Aganippe ; and Thessalonica was the 
 purified cognomen of the Duchess de Tremouille. But out of 
 such childishness resulted great good, notwithstanding that Moliere 
 laughed, and that the Academie derided Corneille and all others 
 of the innovating coterie. The times were coarse ; things, what- 
 ever they might be, were called by their names ; ears polite expe- 
 rienced offence, and at Rambouillet periphrasis was called upon to 
 express what the language otherwise conveyed offensively by the 
 medium of a single word. The idea was good, although it was 
 abused. Of its quality some conjecture may be formed by one or 
 two brief examples ; and I may add, by the way, that the French 
 Academy ended by adopting many of the terms which it at first 
 refused to acknowledge. Popularity had been given to much of 
 the remainder, and thus a great portion of the vocabulary of Ram- 
 bouillet has become idiomatic French. "Modeste," "friponne," 
 and " secrete," were names given to the under-garments of ladies, 
 which we now should not be afraid to specify. The sun was the 
 " amiable illuminator ;" to " fulfil the desire which the chair had to 
 embrace you," was simply to " sit down." Horses were " plushed 
 
THE RECORD OF RAMBOUILLET. 269 
 
 coursers ;" a carriage was " four cornices," and chairmen were 
 "baptized mules." A bed was the "old dreamer;" a hat, the 
 " buckler against weather ;" to laugh was to " lose your gravity ;" 
 dinner was the " meridional necessity ;" the ear was the " organ, 
 or the gate of hearing ;" and the " throne of modesty" was the pol- 
 ished phrase for a fair young cheek. There is nothing very edify- 
 ing in all this, it is true ; but the fashion set people thinking, and 
 good ensued. Old indelicacies disappeared, and the general, spo- 
 ken language was refined. If any greater mental purity ensued 
 from the change, I can scarcely give the credit of it to the party 
 at Rambouillet, for, with all their proclaimed refinement, their 
 nicety was of the kind described in the well-known maxim of the 
 Dean of St. Patrick. 
 
 One of the most remarkable men in the circle of Rambouillet, 
 was the Marquis de Salles, Knight of St. Louis. He was the 
 second son of the Duke de Montausier, and subsequently inherited 
 the title. At the period of his father's death, his mother found 
 herself with little doAver but her title. She exerted herself, how- 
 ever, courageously. She instructed her children herself, brought 
 them up in strict Huguenot principles, and afterward sent them to 
 the Calvinistic college at Sedan, where the young students were 
 famous for the arguments which they maintained against all comers 
 — and they were many — who sought to convert them to popery. 
 At an early age he acquired the profession of arms, the only voca- 
 tion for a young and portionless noble ; and he shed his blood lib- 
 erally for a king who had no thanks to offer to a protestant. His 
 wit, refinement, and gallant bearing, made him a welcome guest at 
 Rambouillet, where his famous attachment to Julie, who was three 
 years his se'hior, gave matter for conversation to the whole of 
 France. Courageous himself, he loved courage in others, and his 
 love for Julie d'Angennes, was fired by the rare bravery exhibited 
 by her in tending a dying brother, the infectious nature of whose 
 disorder had made even his hired nurses desert him. In the 
 season of mourning, the whole court, led by royalty, went and <lid 
 homage to this pearl of sisters. But no admiration fell so sweetly 
 upon her ear as that whispered to her by the young Montausier. 
 One evidence of his chivalrous gallantry is yet extant. It is in 
 that renowned volume called the " Guirlande de Julie," of which 
 
270 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DATS. 
 
 he was the projector, and in the accomplishing of which, knights, 
 artists, and poets, lent their willing aid. It is superb vellum tome. 
 The frontispiece is the garland or wreath, from which the volume 
 takes its name. Each subsequent page presents one single flower 
 from this wreath (there are eighteen of them) with verses in honor 
 of Julie, composed by a dozen and a half of very insipid poets. 
 This volume was sold some years ago to Madame D'Uzes, a de- 
 scendant of the family, when its cost amounted to nearly one thou- 
 sand francs per page. 
 
 As everything was singular at Rambouillet, so of course was 
 the wooing of Julie and her knight. It was very " long a-doing," 
 and we doubt if in the years of restrained ardor, of fabulous con- 
 stancy, of reserve, and sad yet pleasing anguish, the lover ever 
 dared to kiss the hand of his mistress, or even to speak of mar- 
 riage, but by a diplomatic paraphrase. 
 
 The goddesses of Rambouillet entertained an eloquent horror 
 of the gross indelicacy of such unions, for which Moliere has 
 whipped them with a light but cutting scourge. The lover, more- 
 over, was a Huguenot. What was he to do ? Like a true knight 
 he rushed to the field, was the hero of two brilliant campaigns, 
 and then wooed her as knight of half-a-dozen new orders, mare- 
 chal-du-camp, and Governor of Alsatia. The nymph was still 
 coy. The knight again buckled on his armor, and in the melee 
 at Dettingen was captured by the foe. After a two months' de- 
 tention, he was ransomed by his mother, for two thousand crowns. 
 He re-entered Rambouillet lieutenant-general of the armies of 
 France, and he asked for the recompense of Ins fourteen years 
 of constancy and patience. Julie was shocked, for she only thought 
 how brief had been the period of their acquaintance* At length 
 the marquis made profession of Romanism, and thereby purchased 
 the double aid of the church and the throne. The king, the 
 queen, Cardinal Mazarin, and a host of less influential members, 
 besought her to relent, and the shy beauty at length reluctantly 
 surrendered. The marriage took place in 1645, and Julie was then 
 within sight of forty years of age. The young chevaliers and 
 wits had, you may be sure, much to say thereupon. The elder 
 beaux esprit looked admiringly ; but a world of whispered wicked- 
 ness went on among them, nevertheless. 
 
THE RECORD OP RAMBOUILLET. 271 
 
 Montausier, for he now was duke and knight of the Holy Ghost, 
 became the reigning sovereign over the literary circle at Ram- 
 bouillet, during the declining years of Julie's mother. Catherine 
 died in 1665, after a long retirement, and almost forgotten by the 
 sons of those whom she once delighted to honor. The most deli- 
 cate and the most difficult public employment ever held by the 
 duke, was that of governor to the dauphin. This office he filled 
 with singular ability. He selected Bossuet and Huet to instruct 
 the young prince in the theoretical wisdom of books, but the prac- 
 tical teaching was imparted by himself. Many a morning saw 
 the governor and his pupil issue from the gilded gates of Versailles 
 to take a course of popular study among the cottages and peas- 
 antry of the environs. 
 
 The heart of the true knight was shattered by the death of 
 Julie in 1671, at the age of sixty-four. He survived her nine- 
 teen years. They were passed in sorrow, but also in continual 
 active usefulness; and when, at length, in 1690, the grave of his 
 beloved wife opened to receive him, Flechier pronounced a fitting 
 funeral oration over both. 
 
 The daughter and only surviving child of this distinguished 
 pair gave, with her hand, the lordship of Rambouillet to the Due 
 d'Uzes, " Chevalier de l'ordre clu Saint Esprit." The knightly 
 family of D'Angennes had held it for three centuries. It was in 
 1706 destined to become royal. Louis XIV. then purchased it 
 for the Count of Toulouse, legitimatized son of himself and 
 Madame de Montespan. This count was knight and Grand Ad- 
 miral of France, at the age of five years. In 1704, he had just 
 completed his twenty -fifth year. He is famous for having encoun- 
 tered the fleet commanded by Eook and Shovel, after the capture 
 of Gibraltar, and for having what the cautious Russian generals 
 call, "withdrawn out of range," when he found himself on the 
 point of being utterly beaten. He behaved himself as bravely as 
 any knight could have done ; but the government was not satisfied 
 with him. Pontchartrain, the Minister of Marine, recalled him, 
 sent him to Rambouillet, and left him there to shoot rabbits, and 
 like Diocletian, raise cabbages. 
 
 His son and successor, who was the great Duke de Penthievre, 
 commenced his knighthood early. He was even made Grand 
 
272 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Admiral of France before he knew salt water from fresh. He 
 studied naval tactics as Uncle Toby and the corporal fought their 
 old battles — namely, with toy batteries. In the duke's case, it 
 was, moreover, with little vessels and small sailors all afloat in a 
 miniature fish-pond, made to represent, for the nonce, the mighty 
 and boundless deep. This grand admiral never ventured on the 
 ocean, but he bore himself chivalrously on the bloody field of 
 Dettingen, and he won imperishable laurels by his valor at Fon- 
 tenoy. For such scenes and their glories, however, the preux 
 chevalier cared but little. Ere the French Te Deum was sung 
 upon the last-named field, he hastened back to his happy 
 hearth at home. Rambouillet was then the abiding-place of all 
 the virtues. There the home-loving knight read the Scriptures 
 while the duchess sat at his side making garments for the poor. 
 There, the Chevalier Florian, his secretary and friend, meditated 
 those graceful rhymes and that harmonious prose, in which human 
 nature is in pretty masquerade, walking about like Watteau's 
 figures, in vizors, brocades, high heels, and farthingales. When 
 the duchess died in child-birth, of her sixth child, her husband 
 withdrew to La Trappe where, among other ex-soldiers, he for 
 weeks prayed and slept upon the bare ground. Five out of his 
 children died early. Among them was the chivalrous but intem- 
 perate Prince de Lamballe, who died soon after his union with 
 the unhappy princess who fell a victim to those fierce French 
 revolutionists — who were ordinarily so amiable, according to 
 M. Louis Blanc, that they were never so delighted as when they 
 could rescue a human being from death. 
 
 It was by permission of the duke, who refused to sell his house, 
 that Louis XV. built in the adjacent forest the hunting-lodge of 
 St. Hubert. An assemblage of kings, courtiers, knights and ladies 
 there met, at whose doings the good saint would have blushed, 
 could he have witnessed them. One night the glittering crowd 
 had galloped there for a carouse, when discovery was made that 
 the materials for supper had been forgotten, or left behind at 
 Versailles. " Let us go to Penthievre !" was the universal cry ; 
 but the king looked grave at the proposition. Hunger and the 
 universal opposition, however, overcame him. Forth the famished 
 revellers issued, and played a reveillee on the gates of Rambouillet 
 
THE RECOfiD OF BAMBOUILLET. 273 
 
 loud enough to have startled the seven sleepers. " Penthievre is 
 in bed !" said one. " He is conning his breviary !" sneered 
 another. " Gentlemen, he is, probably, at prayers," said the king, 
 who, like an Athenian, could applaud the virtue which he failed 
 to practise. " Let us withdraw," added the exemplary royal head 
 of the order of the Holy Ghost. " If we do," remarked Madame 
 du Barry, " I shall die of hunger ; let us knock again." To the 
 storm which now beset the gates, the latter yielded ; and as they 
 swung open, they disclosed the duke, who, girt in a white apron, 
 and with a ladle in his hand, received his visiters with the an- 
 nouncement that he was engaged in helping to make soup for the 
 poor. The monarch and his followers declared that no poor could 
 be more in need of soup than they were. They accordingly 
 seized the welcome supply, devoured it with the appetite of those 
 for whom it was intended, and paid the grave knight who was 
 their host, in the false coin of pointless jokes. How that host 
 contrasted with his royal guest, may be seen in the fact told of 
 him, when a poor woman kissed his hand, and asked a favor as 
 he was passing in a religious procession. " In order of religion 
 before God," said he, " I am your brother. In all other cases, 
 for ever your friend." The Order of the Holy Ghost never had 
 a more enlightened member than he. 
 
 In 1785 Louis XVI. in some sort compelled him to part with 
 Rambouillet for sixteen million of francs. He retired to Ku, 
 taking with him the bodies of the dead he had loved when living. 
 There were nine of that silent company ; and as the Duke 
 passed with them on his sad and silent way, the clouds wept over 
 them, and the people crowded the long line of road, paying their 
 homage in honest tears. 
 
 Then came that revolutionary deluge which swept from Ram- 
 bouillet the head of the order of the Holy Ghost, and the entire 
 chapter with him; and which dragged from the mead and the 
 dairy the queen and princesses, whose pastime it was to milk 
 the cows in fancy dresses. The Duke de Penthievre died of the 
 Revolution, yet not through personal violence offered to himself. 
 The murder of his daughter-in-law, the Princess de Lamballe, was 
 the last fatal stroke ; and he died forgiving her assassins and his 
 own. 
 
 18 
 
274 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 During the first Republic there was nothing more warlike at 
 Rambouillet than the merino flocks which had been introduced by 
 Louis XVI. for the great benefit of his successors. A scene 
 rf some interest occurred there in the last days of the empire. 
 
 On the 27th of March, 1814, the empress Maria Louisa with 
 the King of Rome in her arms, his silver-gray jacket bear- 
 ing those ribboned emblems of chivalry which may still be seen 
 upon it at the Louvre, sought shelter there, while she awaited the 
 issue of the bloody struggle which her own father was maintaining 
 against her husband. The empress passed three days at Ram- 
 bouillet, solacing her majestic anguish by angling for carp. Ul- 
 timately, the Emperor of Austria entered the hall where his im- 
 perial son-in-law had made so many Knights of the Legion of 
 Honor, to carry off his daughter and the disinherited heir. As 
 the three sat that night together before the wood-fire, the Arch- 
 Duchess Maria-Louisa talked about the teeth of the ex-king of 
 Rome, while two thousand Austrian soldiers kept watch about 
 the palace. 
 
 The gates had again to be open to a fugitive. On the last of 
 the " three glorious days" of July a poor, pale, palsied fugitive 
 rushed into the chateau, obtained, not easily, a glass of water and 
 a crust, and forthwith hurried on to meet captivity at last. This 
 was the Prince de Polignae. Two hours after he had left came 
 the old monarch Charles X., covered with dust, dropping tears 
 like rain, bewildered with past memories and present realities, and 
 loudly begging for food for the two " children of France," the oft- 
 spring of his favorite son, the Duke de Berri. In his own pal- 
 ace a king of France was compelled to surrender his own ser- 
 vice of plate, before the village would sell him bread in return. 
 When refreshed therewith, he had strength to abdicate in favor 
 of his son, the Duke d'Angouleme, who at once resigned in favor 
 of his nephew the Duke de Bordeaux ; and tins done, the whole 
 party passed by easy stages into an inglorious exile. With them 
 was extinguished the Order of the Holy Ghost ; and never since 
 that day have the emblematic dove and star been seen on the 
 breast of any knight in France. 
 
 Louis Philippe would fain have appropriated Rambouillet to 
 himself ; but the government assigned it to the nation, and let it 
 
THE RECORD OF RAMBOUILLET. 275 
 
 to a phlegmatic German, who had an ambition to sleep on the bed 
 of kings, and could afford to pay for the gratification of his fancy. 
 It was on the expiration of his lease that the house and grounds 
 were made over to a company of speculators, who sadly desecra- 
 ted fair Julie's throne. The present sovereign of France has given 
 it a worthy occupation. It is now an asylum and a school for the 
 children of the brave. It began as the cradle of knights ; and the 
 orphans of those who were as brave as any of the chevaliers of 
 old now find a refuge at the old hearth of the Knights of Amaury. 
 I can well conclude, that, by this time, my readers may be 
 weary of foreign scenes and incidents, as we are of real person- 
 ages. May I venture then, for the sake of variety, to ask them 
 to accompany me " to the well-trod stage, anon ?" There I will 
 treat, to the best of my poor ability, of Stage Knights generally ; 
 and first, of the greatest of them all — Sir John Falstaff. 
 
276 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. 
 
 " I accept that heart 
 Which courts my love in most familiar phrase." — Heywood. 
 
 Henry, Earl of Richmond, always creates a favorable impres- 
 sion on young people who see him, for the first time, without 
 knowing much about him, previously, at the end of Shakespeare's 
 tragedy of Richard the Third. This is a far higher degree of 
 favor than he merited, for Henry was a very indifferent personage 
 indeed. On the other hand Sir John Falstaff has had injustice 
 done him by the actors ; and of Shakespeare's jolly old gentleman 
 they have made what, down to Macklin's times, they made of 
 Shylock, a mere mountebank. 
 
 In the very first scene, in the first part of Henry IV., when the 
 Prince and Sir John appear in company, the knight is, by far, a 
 more accomplished gentleman than the heir-apparent, for he speaks 
 more refinedly of phrase, and indeed seldom indulges in scurrilous 
 epithets, until provoked. Strong language is the result of his in- 
 firmity of nature, not of vicious inclination. Lord Castlereagh 
 was not accounted the less a gentleman for using, as he could do, 
 very unsavory phrases occasionally. 
 
 The Prince is the first to rail, while Sir John shows his breed- 
 ing and, I will add, his reading, by quoting poetry. But, if he is 
 poetical, still more is he philosophical. How gravely does he be- 
 seech Hal to trouble him no more with vanity ! And what a cen- 
 sure does the heavy philosopher fling at the King's son, when he 
 tells the latter that he was hurt to hear the wise remarks of a lord 
 of the council touching that son's conduct! The fault of the 
 knight is, that he is easily led away into evil ; a common weakness 
 with good-natured people. It is only since he held fellowship 
 
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. 277 
 
 with the Prince, that the fat follower of the latter had become 
 knowing in evil, and Heaven help him, little better, as he says, 
 than one of the wicked. Nay, he has enough of orthodoxy left 
 to elicit praise, even from the editor of the Record. " O, if a man 
 were to be saved by merit," he exclaims, " what hole in hell were 
 hot enough to hold him !" 
 
 He robs on the highway, it will be said. Well, let us not be 
 too ready to doubt his gentility on that account. There was many 
 a noble cut-purse in the grand gallery at Versailles, when it was 
 most crowded ; and George Prince of Wales once nearly lost the 
 diamond-hilt of his sword, at one of his royal mother's " drawing- 
 rooms." The offenders here were but petty-larceny rascals, com- 
 pared with FalstafF on the highway. That he defrauded the 
 King's exchequer is, certainly, not to be denied. But again, let 
 us not be too hasty to condemn good men with little foibles. 
 Recollect that St. Francis de Sales very often cheated at cards. 
 
 Robbery on the highway was, after all, only, as I may call it, 
 a rag of knighthood. FalstafT robbed in good company. It was 
 his vocation. It was the fashion. It was an aristocratic pastime. 
 Young blood would have it so ; and Sir John was a boy with the 
 boys. In more recent times, your young noble, of small wit and 
 too ample leisure, flings stale eggs at unsuspecting citizens, makes 
 a hell of his quarters, if he be military, and breaks the necks of 
 stage-managers. 
 
 Sir John was, doubtless, one of those of whom Gadshill speaks 
 as doing the robbing profession some grace for mere sport's sake. 
 " I am joined," says Gadshill, " with no foot land-rakers, no long- 
 staff sixpenny strikers, none of those mad mustachio, purple-hued, 
 malt-worms, but with nobility, and sanguinity ; burgomasters, and 
 great mongers." Indeed, it is matter of fact that, there were 
 graver, if not greater men than these among the noble thieves, 
 " who would, if matters were looked into, for their own credit- 
 ^ake, make all whole." There was one at least who, for being a 
 highway robber, made none the worse justice, charged to adminis- 
 ter halters to poorer thieves. 
 
 But let us return to our old friend. Poor Sir John, I doubt if 
 he would have gone robbing, even in the Prince's company, only 
 that he was bewitched by his Royal Highness's social qualities. 
 
278 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 But even then, while patiently enduring all sorts of hard jokes, 
 he is really the Mentor of the party, and does not go to rob the 
 travellers without first seriously reminding the gentlemen of the 
 road, that it was a hanging matter. He would keep them from 
 wrong, but as they are resolved on evil commission he accompa- 
 nies them. He has explained the law, and he is not too proud to 
 share the profits. 
 
 He is brave, too, despite all his detractors ! When the Prince 
 and Poins, in disguise, set upon the gentle robbers, as they are 
 sharing their booty, FalstafF is the only one who is described as 
 giving " a blow or two," before he imitates " the rest," and runs 
 away. "When he attacked the travellers he was content to fight 
 Ins man; there were four to four. And as to the imaginative 
 description of the assault given by Falstaff, I believe it to have 
 been uttered in joke and gayety of heart. I have implicit faith 
 in the assertion, that he knew the disguised parties as well as 
 their mothers did. See how readily he detects the Prince and 
 Poins, when they are disguised as " drawers" at the inn in East- 
 cheap. If Falstaff was right in the latter case, when he told the 
 Prince that he, Falstaff, was a gentleman, I think, too, he had as 
 sufficient authority for saying to Hal, " Thou knowest I am as 
 valiant as Hercules." I can not believe otherwise of a man 
 whose taste was so little vitiated that he could at once detect 
 when there was " lime" in his sack, and who no sooner hears that 
 the state is in danger, than he suggests to the young Prince that 
 he must to court. His obesity may be suspected as not being the 
 fruit of much temperance, but there is a Cardinal Archbishop in 
 England who is the fattest man in the fifty-two counties, and why 
 may we not conclude in both cases, that it is as Falstaff says, and 
 that sighing and grief blow up a man like a bladder ? 
 
 Then, only consider the reproof which Falstaff addresses to the 
 Prince, speaking in the character of King to that illustrious scape- 
 grace. TVisdom more austere, or graver condemnation of excess, 
 could hardly be uttered by the whole college of cardinals, at any 
 time. The prince is a mere plagiarist from the knight, and when 
 he accuses the latter of being given to licentious ways, with what 
 respectful humility does the old man plead guilty to Ms years, but 
 " saving your reverence," not to the vices which are said to ac- 
 company them ? 
 
SIR JOHN FALSTAPF. 279 
 
 Not that he is perfect, or would boast of being so. " He has 
 had" he says touchingly, " a true faith and a good conscience, but 
 their date is out." How ill is he requited by the Prince, in whose 
 service he has lost these jewels, when his Highness remarks, be- 
 fore setting out to the field, " I'll procure this fat rogue a charge 
 of foot, and I know his death will be a charge of fourscore." And 
 this is said of one who has forgotten what the inside of a church 
 is like through keeping this Prince's villanous company ; till when, 
 he had been " as virtuously given as a gentleman need be." 
 What he considers as the requisite practice of a gentleman, is 
 explained by Falstaff in his low estate, and not in the spirit 
 which moved him when he u lived well and in good compass." 
 
 But there is a Nemesis at every man's shoulder, and if Falstaff 
 was cavalierly careless enough to run up a score at the Boar's 
 Head, and to accept even a present of Holland shirts, which he 
 ungratefully designates as " filthy dowlas," the way in which he 
 was dunned must have been harsh to the feelings of a knight and 
 a gentleman. In reviewing his gallantries and his extravagances, 
 we must not, in justice to him, forget that he was a bachelor. If 
 he degraded himself, he inflicted misery on no Lady Falstaff at 
 home. Heroes have been buried, with whole nations for mourn- 
 ers, whose offences in this worse respect have been forgotten. 
 Not that I would apologise for the knight's familiarity with either 
 the Hostess or that remarkably nice young lady, Miss Dorothea 
 Tearsheet. I do not know what the private life of that Lord 
 Chief Justice may have been who was so very merciless in his 
 censure upon the knight ; but I do know that there have been lu- 
 minaries as brilliant who have hidden their lights in very noisome 
 places and who had not FalstaiFs excuse. 
 
 I am as little embarrassed touching Sir John's character as a 
 soldier, as I am about his morals. I do not indeed like to hear 
 him acknowledge that he has " misused the King's press most 
 damnably," or that he has pocketed "three hundred and odd 
 pounds" by illegally releasing a hundred and fifty men. But at 
 this very day practices much worse than this are of constant ob- 
 servance in the Russian service, where officers and officials, 
 whose high-sounding names " exeunt in off," rob the Czar daily, 
 and are decorated with the Order of St. Catherine. 
 
280 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 In the field, I maintain that Falstaff is a hero. As for his cate- 
 chism on honor, so far from detracting from his reputation, it 
 seems to me to place him on an equality with that modern English 
 hero who said that his body trembled at the thought of the perils 
 into which his spirited soul was about to plunge him. Falstaff 
 did not court death. " God keep lead out of me," is his reason- 
 able remark ; " I need no more weight than mine own bowels !" 
 But the man who makes this prayer and comment was not afraid 
 to encounter death. " / have led my ragamuffins where they are 
 peppered." He went then at their head. That there was hot 
 work in front of him is proved by what follows. " There's but 
 three of my hundred and fifty left alive ; and they are for the 
 town's end, to beg during life !" A hundred and forty-seven men 
 killed out of a hundred and fifty-one ; of the four who survived, 
 three are illustriously mutilated ; while the bold soul who led 
 them on is alone unscathed ! Why, it reminds us of Windham 
 and the Redan. It is Thermopylae, with Leonidas surviving to 
 tell his own story. 
 
 His discretion is not to be taken as disproving his valor. He 
 fought Douglas, remember, and did not run away from him. He 
 found the Scot too much for him, it is true ; and quietly dropped 
 down, as if dead. What then ? When the Muscovite general fell 
 back so hurriedly from Eupatoria, how did he describe the move- 
 ment ? " Having accomplished," he said, " all that was expected, 
 the Russians withdrew out of range." So, Sir John, with respect 
 to Douglas. 
 
 Nor would some Muscovite officers and gentlemen object to an- 
 other action of FalstafFs. The knight it will be remembered with 
 regret, stabs the body of Hotspur, as the gallant Northumbrian 
 lies dead, or wounded, upon the field. Now, by this we may see 
 that Russia is not only some four centuries behind us in civiliza- 
 tion. The barbarous act of Falstaff was committed a score of 
 times over on the field of Inkerman. Many a gallant, breathing, 
 but helpless English soldier, received the mortal thrust which 
 they could not parry, from the hands of the Chevalier Ivan Falstaff, 
 who fought under the doubtful inspiration of St. Sergius. And, 
 moreover, there were men in authority there who virtually re- 
 marked to these heroes what Prince Henry does to Sir John, 
 
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. 281 
 
 " If a lie may do thee grace, 
 I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have." 
 
 That our Falstaff bore himself with credit on the field, is made 
 clear in spite of the incident of Hotspur. I do not pause to point 
 out the bearing of Morton's answer, when Northumberland asks 
 him, " Didst thou come from Shrewsbury?" — "I ran from Shrews- 
 bury, my noble lord," is the reply ; confessing that he ran from a 
 foe, among whom Falstaff was a leader : I am more content to 
 rest on the verdict of so dignified yet unwilling a witness as the 
 Lord Chief Justice. It is quite conclusive. " Your day's service 
 at Shrewsbury," says my lord, " hath a little gilded over your 
 night's exploit at Gadshill." Nothing can be more satisfactory. 
 The bravery of Falstaff was the talk of the town. 
 
 When peace has come, or that Sir John has received permis- 
 sion to return home, on urgent private affairs, he enters a little 
 into dissipation, it is true. He is not, however, guilty of such 
 excess as to materially injure his health ; otherwise his page would 
 not have brought him so satisfactory a message from his doctor. 
 He may, perhaps, be also open to the charge of being too easily 
 taken by such white bait as he might find in the muslin of East- 
 cheap. Heroes, however, have usually very inflammable hearts. 
 When Nelson was ashore, he immediately fell in love. 
 
 In spite of a trifle of rioting, the overflowing of animal spirits, 
 Falstaff is governed by the laws of good society. Jokes are fired 
 at him incessantly, but he takes them with good-humor, and repays 
 them with interest. " I am not only witty in myself," he says, 
 " but the cause that wit is in other men." Gregoire and La Bru- 
 yere expressly define the great rule of conversation to be that, while 
 you exhibit your own powers, you should endeavor to elicit and en- 
 courage those of your companions. What they put down as a canon, 
 Sir John had already, and long before, put in excellent practice. 
 He had wit enough to foil the Chief Justice, but he left to his 
 lordship ample opportunity to exhibit his own ability ; and then 
 the compliment to the great judicial dignitary, that he was not yet 
 clean past his youth, although he had in him some relish of the 
 saltness of time — this, combined with the benevolent recommen- 
 dation that his lordship would have a reverend care of his health, 
 robs the latter personage of any prejudice he might have entertained 
 
282 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 against the knight. Indeed, it would be difficult to conceive how 
 the religiously-minded Lord Chief Justice could have entertained 
 prejudice against a gallant old gentleman who had lost his voice 
 with " hollaing" (his men to the charge), " and singing of anthems." 
 
 Brave ! there can be no question touching his bravery. And 
 if he does really rust a little at home, and impose a little upon 
 the weakness of the Hostess and other ladies, whom he weekly 
 woos to marry, and who find his gallantry and saucy promises 
 irresistible ; he is ever ready for service. 'He does not look for 
 unlimited absence from scenes of danger. If he led his company 
 of three hundred and a half to death, and comes out scot-free 
 himself, he is by no means prepared to hang about town, inactive 
 for the remainder of the campaign. When he is appointed on 
 perilous enterprise with Prince John of Lancaster, he simply re- 
 marks, with a complacency which is doubtless warranted by truth, 
 " There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am 
 ihrust upon it- Well, I can not last for ever ;" and, with this re- 
 mark buckled on to some satirical wit which he points at the Lord 
 Chief Justice, he sets forth cheerily on his mission, the gout in his 
 toe, and in his purse not more than seven groats and twopence. 
 He has a rouse and a riot at the Boar's Head before he starts ; 
 but nothing more disreputable seems to have occurred than one 
 might hear of at a modern club, before some old naval lion is hic- 
 cupped on to deeds of daring. Besides, the knight is no hypo- 
 crite ; and he will not be accounted virtuous, like many of his 
 contemporaries, by " making courtesy and saying nothing." Not, 
 on the other hand, that even in his moments of jolly relaxation, 
 he would be unseemly noisy. He can troll a merry catch, but, as 
 he says to a vulgarly roystering blade, " Pistol, I would be quiet." 
 It has been thought unseemly that he should quarrel with and 
 even roughly chastise the " ancient" with whom he had been on 
 such very intimate terms. But such things happen in the best 
 society. At the famous Reform Club dinner, Sir James gave per- 
 mission to Sir Charles to go and make war ; but, since that time, 
 Sir Charles, with words, instead of rapiers, has been poking his iron 
 into the ribs of Sir James, after the fashion of Falstaff and Pistol. 
 
 And so, as I have said, Sir John girds him for the battle. If 
 he did in his youth, hear the chimes at midnight, in company with 
 
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. 283 
 
 Master Shallow, the lean, but light-living barrister of Clement's 
 Inn, he did not waste his vigor. So great indeed is his renown 
 for this, and for the bravery which accompanies it, that no sooner 
 does the doughty Sir John Colville of the Dale meet him in single 
 combat, than Colville at once surrenders. The very idea of such 
 a hero being face to face with him impels him to give up his sword 
 at once. " I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought 
 yield me." Was ever greater compliment paid to mortal hero ? 
 
 Of this achievement Prince John most ungeneronsly says, that 
 it was more the effect of Colville's courtesy than Falstaff' s deserv- 
 ing. But, as the latter remarks, the young sober-blooded boy of a 
 prince does not love the knight ; and " that's no marvel," exclaims 
 Falstaff, " he drinks no wine." The teetotaler of those days dispar- 
 agedAhe deeds of a man who increased the sum of his country's 
 glory. He was like a sour Anglo-Quaker, sneering down the 
 merit of a Crimean soldier. We do not, however, go so far as 
 Falstaff in his enthusiasm, when he exclaims that skill in the 
 weapon is nothing without sack. There is something in the re- 
 mark, nevertheless, as there is when Sir John subsequently says 
 in reference to his wits suffering by coming in dull contact with 
 obtuse Shallow. " It is certain," says he, " that either wise bear- 
 ing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases, one of 
 another ; therefore let men take care of their company." Victor 
 Hugo has manifestly condescended to plagiarize this sentiment, 
 and has said in one of his most remarkable works, that " On devi- 
 ent vieux a force de regarder les vieux." 
 
 And, to come to a conclusion, how unworthily is this gallant 
 soldier, merry companion, and profound philosopher, treated al^last 
 by an old associate, Prince Hal, when king. Counting on the sa- 
 credness of friendship, Sir John had borrowed from Master Shal- 
 low a thousand pounds. He depended upon being able to repay 
 it out of the new monarch's liberality, but when he salutes the 
 sovereign — very imopportunely, I confess — the latter, with a 
 cold-hearted and shameless ingratitude, declares that he does not 
 know the never-to-be-forgotten speaker. King Henry V. does 
 indeed promise — 
 
 "For competence of life, I will allow you ; 
 That lack of means enforce yon not to evil ;" 
 
284 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 and departs, after intimating that the knight must not reside with- 
 in ten miles of court, and that royal favor will be restored to the 
 banished man, if merit authorize it. 
 
 " Be it your charge, my lord, to see performed the tenor of our 
 word," says the King to the Chief Justice ; and Falstaff, though 
 sorely wounded in feelings, is still not without hope. But see 
 what a royal word, or what this royal word is ! The Monarch 
 has no sooner passed on his way, than the Chief Justice fulfils its 
 meaning, by ordering Sir John Falstaff and all his company to be 
 close-confined in the Fleet ! The great dignitary does this with 
 as much hurried glee as we may conjecture Lord Campbell 
 would have had, in rendering the same service to Miss Agnes 
 Strickland, when the latter accused the judge of stealing her story 
 of Queen Eleanor of Provence. 
 
 However this may be, the royal ingratitude broke the proud 
 heart in the bosom of Sir John. He took to his bed, and never 
 smiled again. " The King has killed his heart," is the bold asser- 
 tion of Dame Quickly, at a time when such an assertion might 
 have cost her her liberty, if not her life. How edifying too was 
 his end ! He did not " babble o' green fields." Mr. Collier has 
 proved this, to the satisfaction of all Exeter Hall, who would 
 deem such light talk trifling. But he died arguing against " the 
 whore of Babylon," which should make him find favor even with 
 Dr. Cumming, for it is a proof of the knight's Protestantism — and 
 " Would I were with him," exclaims honest lieutenant Bardolph, 
 with more earnestness than reverence — " Would I were with him, 
 wheresome'er he is ; either in heaven or in hell." If this has a 
 profene ring in it, let us think of the small education and the hard 
 life of him who uttered it. There was more profanity and terrible 
 blasphemy to boot, in the assertion of Prince Menschikoff, after 
 the death of the Czar Nicholas, namely, " that his late august mas- 
 ter might be seen in the skies blessing his armies on their way to 
 victory !" Decidedly, I prefer Bardolph to Menschikoff, and Fal- 
 staff to both. 
 
 I am sorry that Queen Elizabeth had the bad taste to request 
 Shakespeare to represent " Falstaff in love." The result is only 
 an Adelphi farce in five acts ; in which the author, after all, has 
 made the knight far more respectable than that sorry fool, Ford. 
 
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. 285 
 
 The " Wives" themselves are not much stronger in virtue than 
 Dorothea of Eastcheap, unless Sir John himself "was mistaken in 
 them. Of Mrs. Ford, who holds her husband's purse-strings, he 
 says, " I can construe the action of her familiar style," and he tells 
 us what that manner was, pretty distinctly. When he writes to 
 Mrs. Page, he notices a common liking which exists in both, in 
 the words, " You love sack, and so do I." The " Wives," for mere 
 mischief's sake, we will say, tempted the gallant old soldier. In 
 their presence he had left off swearing, praised woman's modesty, 
 and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeli- 
 ness, that Mrs. Page thought, perhaps, that drinking sack, and, in 
 company with Mrs. Ford, talking familiarly with him, would not 
 tempt him to turn gallant toward them. This consequence did 
 follow ; and then the sprightly Wives, in place of bidding their ri- 
 diculous husbands cudgel him, come to the conclusion that " the 
 best way was to entertain him with hope," till his wickedly raised 
 fire should have " melted him in his own grease." A dangerous 
 process, ladies, depend upon it ! 
 
 Then, what a sorry cur is that Master Ford who puts Falstaff 
 upon the way to seduce his own wife ! Had other end come of it 
 than what did result, is there a jury even in Gotham, that would 
 have awarded Ford a farthing's-worth of separation. Falstaff is 
 infinitely more refined than Ford or Page. Neither of these 
 noodles could have paid such sparkling compliments as the knight 
 pays to the lady. " Let the court of France show me such anoth- 
 er ! I see how thine eyes would emulate the diamond ; thou hast 
 the right-arched bent of the brow, that becomes the ship-tire, the 
 tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance !" Why this is a 
 prose Anacreontic ! And if the speaker of it could offend once, 
 he did not merit to be allured again by hope to a greater punish- 
 ment than he had endured for his first offence. 
 
 For one of the great characteristics of Falstaff is his own sense 
 of seemliness. When he was nearly drowned by being tossed 
 from the buck-basket into the river, his prevalent and uneasy idea 
 was, how disgusting he should look if he were to swell — a moun- 
 tain of mummy ! The Mantelini of Mr. Dickens borrowed from 
 Falstaff this aversion to a "denimed damp body." It is not 
 pleasant ! 
 
286 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Once again, Sir John, though he could err, yet he was ashamed 
 of his offence. Otherwise, would he have confessed, as he did, 
 when recounting how the mock fairies had tormented him, " I was 
 three or four times in the thought they were not fairies, but the 
 guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers drove 
 the grossness of the foppery into a received belief." How exquis- 
 itely is this said ! How does it raise the knight above the broad 
 farce of most of the other characters ! How infinitely superior is 
 he to the two dolts of husbands who, after hearing the confession 
 of guilty intention against the honor of their wives, invite him to 
 spend a jolly evening in company with themselves and the ladies. 
 And so they — 
 
 " Every one go home, 
 And laugh this sport o'er by a wintry fire, 
 Sir John and all." 
 
 This may be accounted too gross for probability ; but worse than 
 this is in the memory of our yet surviving fathers. There was, 
 within such a memory, a case tried before Sir Elijah Impey, in 
 which Talleyrand was the defendant, against whom a husband 
 brought an action, the great statesman having robbed him of his 
 wife. The action was brought to the ordinary issue ; and a few 
 weeks subsequently, plaintiff, defendant, judge, and lady, dined to- 
 gether in the Prince's residence at Paris. 
 
 Of Stage Falstaffs, Quin, according to all accounts, must have 
 been the best, provided only that he had a sufficiency of claret in 
 him, and the house an overflowing audience. Charles Kemble, I 
 verily believe, must have been the worst of stage Falstaffs. At 
 least, having seen him in the character, I can conscientiously assert 
 that I can not imagine a poorer Sir John. He dressed the char- 
 acter well ; but as for its " flavor," it was as if you had the two 
 oyster-shells, minus the fat and juicy oyster. What a galaxy of 
 actors have shined or essayed to shine in this joyous but difficult 
 part ! In Charles the Second's days, Cartwright and Lacy, by 
 their acting in the first part of Henry IV., made Shakespeare pop- 
 ular, when the fashion at Court was against him. Betterton acted 
 the same part in 1700, at Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Haymarket. 
 Four years later, he played the Knight in the " Merry Wives ;" 
 and in 1730, at Drury Lane, he and Mills took the part alternate- 
 
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. 287 
 
 ly, and set dire dissension among the play-goers, as to their respec- 
 tive merits. 
 
 Popular as Betterton was in this character, after he had grown 
 too stout for younger heroes, his manner of playing it was not 
 original ; and his imitation was at second-hand. Ben Jonson had 
 seen it played in Dublin by Baker, a stone-mason. He was so 
 pleased with the representation, that he described the manner of 
 it, on his return to London, to Betterton, who, docile and modest 
 as usual, acknowledged that the mason's conception was better than 
 his own, and adopted the Irish actor's manner, accordingly. 
 
 Chetwood does not tell us how Baker played, but he shows us 
 how he studied, namely in the streets, while overlooking the men 
 who worked under him. " One day, two of his men who were 
 newly come to him, and were strangers to his habits, observing his 
 countenance, motion, gesture, and his talking to himself, imagined 
 their master was mad. Baker, seeing them neglect their work to 
 stare at him, bid them, in a hasty manner, mind their business. 
 The fellows went to work again, but still with an eye to their mas- 
 ter. The part Baker was rehearsing was Falstaff ; and when he 
 came to the scene where Sir Walter Blunt was supposed to be 
 lying dead on the stage, gave a look at one of his new paviors, and 
 with his eye fixed upon him, muttered loud enough to be heard, 
 ' Who have we here ? Sir Walter Blunt ! There's honor for 
 you.' The fellow who was stooping, rose on the instant, and with 
 the help of his companion, bound poor Baker hand and foot, and 
 assisted by other people no wiser than themselves, they carried 
 him home in that condition, with a great mob at their heels." 
 
 Estcourt's Falstaff was fiat and trifling, yet with a certain wag- 
 gishness. That of Harper was droll, but low and coarse. The 
 Falstaff of Evans seems to have been in the amorous scenes, as 
 offensive as Dowton in Major Sturgeon ; and the humor was mis- 
 placed. Accordingly, when we read in old Anthony Aston, that 
 " Betterton wanted the waggery of Estcourt, the drollery of Har- 
 per, and the lasciviousness of Jack Evans," we are disposed to 
 imagine that his Falstaff was none the worse for this trial of 
 wants. 
 
 Throughout the eighteenth century, the character did not lack 
 brilliant actors. In the first part of Henry IV., Mills played the 
 
288 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 character, at Druiy, in 1716. Booth had previously played it 
 for one night, in presence of Queen Anne. Bullock filled Lin- 
 coln's Inn Fields Theatre, with it, in 1721. Quin, in 1738, used 
 to play the character in the two parts of Henry IV. on successive 
 nights, and eight years later his Falstaff attracted crowds to " the 
 Garden." Barry played it against him at Drury, in 1743 and 
 1747 ; but Barry was dull and void of impulse as a school-boy 
 repeating his task. In 1762, the part, at Drury, fell to Yates, for 
 whom the piece was brought out, with the character of Hotspur 
 omitted ! To give more prominence to our knight, a scene was 
 left out. The public did not approve of the plan, for in the same 
 year Love, celebrated by Churchill for his humor, made his first 
 appearance at Drury, as Sir John, when Holland, the baker of 
 Chiswick, played Hotspur, with well-bred warmth. I will add, 
 that though Quin drew immense houses, yet when Harper, some 
 years previously, played the same part at Drury, with Booth hi 
 Hotspur, Wilks as the Prince, and Cibber as Glendower, the com- 
 bined excellence drew as great houses for a much longer period. 
 So that Harper's Falstaff, although inferior to Quin's, was, as was 
 remarked, more seen, yet less admired by the town. Shuter 
 played it almost too " jollily" at the Garden, in 1774. But all 
 other Falstaffs were extinguished for a time, when Henderson, 
 although not physically qualified for the part, astonished the town 
 with his "old boy of the castle," in 1777 at the Haymarket, and 
 delighted them two years later, at Covent Garden. At the latter 
 house, eight years subsequently, Ryder played it respectably, to 
 Lewis's Prince of "Wales; and in 1791, when the Drury Lane 
 company were playing at the Haymarket, Palmer represented 
 Falstaff, and John Keinble mis-represented Hotspur. King tried 
 the knight at the same " little house," in 1792, but King, clever as 
 he was, was physically incapable of representing Falstaff, and he 
 soon ceased to pretend to do so. The next representative was the 
 worst the world had yet seen — namely, Fawcett, who first at- 
 tempted it at the Garden, in 1795. Blisset appeared in it in 
 1803, and disappeared also. From this time no new actor tried 
 the Sir John, in the first part of Henry IV., till 1824, when 
 Charles Kemble made the Ghost of Shakespeare veiy uneasy, by 
 executing a part for which he was totally unfit. He persevered, 
 
SIR JOHN FALSTAFP. 289 
 
 however, but the success of Elliston in the part, two years later, 
 settled the respective merits of two performers, to the advantage 
 of Robert William, as effectually as Grisi showed the town that 
 there was but one Norma, by playing it the night after the fatal 
 attempt made on the Druidess, by Jenny Lind. 
 
 The succession of actors who represented Falstaff, in the second 
 part of Henry IV., was as brilliant as that of the line of repre- 
 sentatives above noticed. Ten years after Betterton and Mills, in 
 1720, we have Harper, and it is somewhat singular that when 
 Mills resigned Falstaff to Harper, he took the part of the King. 
 Hulett, two years subsequently played it at Covent Garden ; 
 and, after another two years, Quin made Drury ecstatic with his 
 fun. He held the part without a real rival, and fifteen years later, 
 in 1749, he was as attractive as ever in this portion of the knight's 
 character, at Covent Garden. Shuter succeeded him in the part 
 at this theatre, in 1755 ; but in 1758, all London, that is the play- 
 goers of London, might be seen hurrying once more to Drury, to 
 witness lively Woodward's very old Falstaff played to Garrick's 
 King. The Garden can not be said to have found a superior 
 means of attraction, when Shuter again represented Sir John, at 
 the Garden, in 1761, on which occasion the parts of Shallow and 
 Silence were omitted ! The object, however, was to shorten the 
 piece, and the main attraction was in the coronation pageant, at 
 the conclusion, in honor of the then young King and Queen, who 
 were well worthy of the honor thus paid to them. 
 
 Love and Holland, who played Falstaff and Hotspur, at Drury 
 Lane, in 1762, played the Knight and the Prince of Wales, at 
 the same house, two years subsequently. Nine years after this, 
 the Garden found a Prince in Mrs. Lessingham, Shuter played 
 Falstaff to her, but the travesty of the former character was 
 only in a slight degree less incongruous than that made by Mrs. 
 Glover, in the present century, who once, if not twice, played the 
 fat knight, for her own benefit. For the next eight or nine years, 
 the best Falstaff possessed by London was Henderson. He 
 played the part first at Drury, and afterward at Covent Garden. 
 Since Quin, there had been no better representative of Sir John ; 
 and even Palmer, in 1788, could not bring the town from its alle- 
 giance to " admirable Henderson." 
 
 19 
 
290 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 The Falstaffs of the present century, in the second part of this 
 historical play, have not achieved a greater triumph than Hender- 
 son. Cooke, who played the obese cavalier, in 1804, was not 
 equal to the part; and Fawcett, in 1821, when the play was' re- 
 vived, with another coronation pageant in honor of George IV., 
 was farther from success than Cooke. The managers at this 
 period were wiser than those who " got up" the play at the period 
 of the accession of George HI., for they retained Shallow and 
 Silence, and never were the illustrious two so inimitably represent- 
 ed as, on this occasion, by Farren and Emery. 
 
 The chief Falstaffs of the "Merry Wives of Windsor" are 
 Betterton (1704), Hulett (1732), Quin (1734), Delane, the young 
 Irish actor (1743), of whom Garrick was foolish enough to be 
 jealous ; Shuter (1758), Henderson, who first played it at the 
 Haymarket in 1777, and Lee Lewis in 1784. Bartley, Phelps, 
 and a clever provincial actor, now in London, named Bartlett, 
 have also played this character with great effect. The Falstaff 
 of the last-named actor is particularly good. 
 
 I have said that Quin was the greatest of Falstaffs, but the 
 greatest in the physical acceptation of the term, was undoubtedly 
 Stephen Kemble. This actor was born almost upon the boards. 
 His clever, but not very gentle-tempered mother, had just con- 
 cluded her performance of Anne Bullen, in a barn, or something 
 like it, at Kingstown, Herefordshire (1758), when Stephen was 
 born, about the period when, according to the action of the play, 
 the Princess Elizabeth is supposed to first see the light. Stephen 
 when he had grown to manhood, weighed as much as all his 
 sisters and brothers put together; and on the 7th of October, 
 1802, he made his appearance at Drury, in the character of Fal- 
 staff. This was nearly twenty years after he had made his debut 
 in London, at Co vent Garden, in Othello. Bannister junior 
 prefaced his performance of the companion of Prince Hal, by 
 some humorous lines, joking on the heaviness of the actor. As 
 Pope played Hotspur, I should fancy, if Pope then was anything 
 like what he was some fifteen or sixteen years later, that Hotspur 
 was even heavier than Sir John. The lines alluded to were ac- 
 counted witty ; and I will conclude my record of the principal 
 actors who have represented the knight, by reproducing them. 
 
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. 291 
 
 A Falstaff here to-night, by nature made, 
 
 Lends to your fav'rite bard his pond'rous aid; 
 
 No man in buckram, he ! no stuffing gear, 
 
 No feather- bed, nor e'en a pillow here ! 
 
 But all good honest flesh and blood, and bone, 
 
 And weighing, more or less, some thirty stone. 
 
 Upon the northern coast by chance we caught him, 
 
 And hither, in a broad-wheeled wagon, brought him : 
 
 For in a chaise the varlet ne'er could enter, 
 
 And no mail-coach on such a fare would venture. 
 
 Blessed with unwieldiness, at least his size 
 
 Will favor find in every critic's eyes. 
 
 And should his humor and his mimic art 
 
 Bear due proportion to his outward part, 
 
 As once was said of Macklin in the Jew, 
 
 " This is the very Falstaff Shakespeare drew." 
 
 To you, with diffidence, he bids me say, 
 
 Should you approve, you may command his stay, 
 
 To lie and swagger here another day. 
 
 If not, to better men he'll leave his sack, 
 
 And go, as ballast, in a collier back. 
 
 In concluding this section of my gossiping record, I will add 
 that the supposition of Shakespeare having intended to represent 
 Sir John Oldcastle under the title of Sir John Falstaff, is merely a 
 supposition. It has never been satisfactorily made out. Far other- 
 wise is the case with that gallant Welsh man-at-arms, Flaellin. The 
 original of this character was a David Gam of Brecknock, who 
 having killed a cousin with an unpronounceable name, in the High 
 Street of Brecknock, avoided the possibly unpleasant consequences 
 by joining the Lancastrian party. Gam was merely a nickname, 
 having reference to an obliquity of vision in the doughty and dis- 
 putative David. The real name was Llewellyn ; and if Shake- 
 speare disguised the appellation, it was from notions of delicacy, 
 probably, as the descendants of the hero were well known and re- 
 spected at the English court in Shakespeare's time. Jones, in his 
 " History of Brecknockshire," identifies the personage in question 
 in this way : " I have called Fluellin a burlesque character, be- 
 cause his pribbles and prabbles, which were generally out-heroded, 
 sound ludicrously to an English as well as a Welsh ear ; yet, after 
 all, Llewellyn is a brave soldier and an honest fellow. He is ad- 
 mitted into a considerable degree of intimacy with the King, and 
 
292 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 stands high in his good opinion, which is a strong presumptive 
 proof, notwithstanding Shakespeare, the better to conceal his ob- 
 ject, describes the death of Sir David Gam, that he intended David 
 Llewellyn by his portrait of the testy Welshman, for there was 
 no other person of that country in the English army, who could 
 have been supposed to be upon such terms of familiarity with the 
 King." It is singular that the descendants of the Welsh knight 
 subsequently dropped the proud old name with more l's in it than 
 syllables, and adopted the monosyllabic soubriquet. Squinting 
 David, who fought so well at Agincourt, would have knocked 
 down any man who would have dared to address him personally 
 as " Gam," that is, " game," or " cock-eyed." His posterity proved 
 less susceptible ; and Mr. Jones says of them, in a burst of melan- 
 choly over fallen greatness : " At different periods between the 
 years 1550 and 1700, I have seen the descendants of the hero of 
 Agincourt (who lived like a wolf and died like a lion) in the pos- 
 session of every acre of ground in the county of Brecon ; at the 
 commencement of the eighteenth century, I find one of them com- 
 mon bellman of the town of Brecknock, and before the conclusion, 
 two others, supported by the inhabitants of the parish where they 
 reside ; and even the name of Gam is, in the legitimate line, ex- 
 tinct." Mr. Jones might have comforted himself by remembering 
 that as the Gams went out, the Kembles cames in, and that the 
 illustrious Sarah dignified by her birth the garret of that " Shoulder 
 of Mutton" public-house, which stood in the street where chivalrous 
 but squinting Davy had slain his cousin with the unpronounceable 
 name. 
 
 John Kemble occasionally took some unwarrantable liberties 
 with Shakespeare. When he produced the "Merry Wives of 
 Windsor" at Co vent Garden, in April, 1804 (in which he played 
 Ford to Cooke's Falstaff), he deprived Sir Hugh Evans of his 
 knightly title, out of sheer ignorance, or culpable carelessness. 
 Blanchard was announced for " Hugh Evans," without the Sir. 
 Hawkins, quoting Fuller, says that " anciently in England, there 
 were more Sirs than Knights ;" and as I have noticed in another 
 page, the monosyllabic Sir was common to both clergymen and 
 knights. To the first, however, only by courtesy, when they had 
 attained their degree of B. A. In a " New Trick to cheat the 
 
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. 293 
 
 Devil," Anne says to her sire, " Nay, sir ;" to which the father re- 
 plies — 
 
 " Sir me no sirs ! I am no knight nor churchman." 
 
 But John Kemble was complimentary to Shakespeare, compared 
 with poor Frederick Reynolds, who turned the " Merry Wives of 
 Windsor into an opera, in 1824 ; and although Dowton did not 
 sing Falstaff, as Lablache subsequently did, the two wives, repre- 
 sented by Miss Stephens and Miss Cubitt, warbled, instead of 
 being merry in prose, and gave popularity to " I know a bank." 
 At the best, Fenton is but an indifferent part, but Braham was 
 made to render it one marked especially by nonsense. Greenwood 
 had painted a scene representing Windsor under a glowing summer 
 sky, under which Fenton (Braham) entered, and remarked, very 
 like Shakespeare : " How I love this spot where dear Anne Page 
 has often met me and confessed her love ! Ha ! I think the sky 
 is overcast — the wind, too, blows like an approaching storm. 
 Well, let it blow on ! I am prepared to brave its fury." Where- 
 upon the orchestra commenced the symphony, and Mr. Braham 
 took a turn up the stage, according to the then approved plan, be- 
 fore he commenced his famous air of " Blow, blow, thou winter 
 wind !" And the fun-anent Falstaff and the Fords was kept wait- 
 ing for nonsense like this ! 
 
 While on the subject of the chivalrous originals of the mock 
 knights of the Stage, I may be permitted to mention here, that 
 Jonson's Bobadil was popularly said to have been named after, if 
 not founded upon, a knight in the army of the Duke of Alva, en- 
 gaged in subduing the Netherlands beneath the despotism of Philip 
 II. According to Strada, after the victory at Giesen, near Mons, 
 in 1570, Alva sent Captain Bobadilla to Spain, to inform Philip 
 of the triumph to his arms. " The ostentation of the message, and 
 still more of the person who bore it, was the origin of the name 
 being applied to any vain-glorious boaster." The Bobadilla family 
 was an illustrious one, and can hardly be supposed to have fur- 
 nished a member who, in any wise, resembles Jonson's swash- 
 buckler. On the other hand, there was Boabdil, the last sultan of 
 Granada, who had indeed borne himself lustily, in his early days, 
 in the field, but who at last cried like a child at losing that Granada 
 
294 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 which he was not man enough to defend. But it would be injus- 
 tice even to the son of Muley Abel Hassan, to imagine that Jon- 
 son only took his name to distinguish therewith the knight of huge 
 words and weapons who lodged with Oliver Cob the Water- 
 bearer. 
 
 The few other Stage Knights whom I have to name, I will in- 
 troduce them to the reader in the next chapter. 
 
STAGE KNIGHTS. 295 
 
 STAGE KNIGHTS. 
 
 " The stage and actors are not so contemptful 
 As every innovating puritan, 
 And ignorant swearer, out of jealous envy, 
 Would have the world imagine." — George Chapman. 
 
 The Commonwealth had no admiration for the stage, and no 
 toleration for actors. When theatricals looked up again, the stage 
 took its revenge, and seldom represented a puritan who was not a 
 knave. There is an instance of this in the old play, entitled " The 
 Puritan, or the Widow of Watling Street." " Wilt steal me thy 
 master's chain ?" quoth Captain Idle to Nicholas St. Antlings, the 
 puritan serving-man. " Steal my master's chain !" quoth Nicho- 
 las ; " no, it shall ne'er be said that Nicholas St. Antlings commit- 
 ted bird-lime. Anything else that I can do," adds the casuist in a 
 serge jerkin, " had it been to rob, I would ha' done it ; but I must 
 not steal, that's the word, the literal, Thou shalt not steal; and 
 would you wish me to steal then ?" " No, faith," answers Pye- 
 board, the scholar; "that were too much; — but wilt thou nim it 
 from him ?" To which honest St. Nicholas, so anxious to observe 
 the letter of th<\ law, so careless about its spirit, remarks, with 
 alacrity, "That, I will !" 
 
 I have said in another page, that ridicule was especially show- 
 ered down upon some of those whom Oliver delighted to honor. 
 As late as the era of Sir George Etherege, we find " one of Oliver's 
 knights" figuring as the buffoon of that delicate gentleman's com- 
 edy, " The Comical Revenge." It is hardly creditable to the times, 
 or to the prevailing taste, that the theatre in Lincoln's-inn Fields 
 cleared one thousand pounds, in less than a month, by this comedy ; 
 and that the company gained more reputation by it, than by any 
 
296 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 preceding piece represented on the same stage. The plot is soon 
 told. Two very fine and not very profligate gentlemen, Lord 
 Beaufort and Colonel Bruce, are in love with a tolerably-refined 
 lady, Graciana. The lord wins the lady, and the philosophical 
 soldier accepts a certain Aurelia, who has the singular merit of 
 being in love with the Colonel. The under-plot has " Oliver's 
 knight" for its hero. The latter is a Sir Nicholas Cully who is 
 cheated out of a promissory note for one thousand pounds, by two 
 gentlemen-sharpers, Wheadle and Palmer. Sir Nicholas is partly 
 saved by the gay, rather than moral, Sir Frederick Frolick. The 
 latter recovers the note, but he passes off his mistress on Sir Nich- 
 olas as his sister, and induces him to marry her. The only differ- 
 ence between the sharpers and the " Knight baronet," Sir Fred- 
 erick, is this: — Wheadle had dressed up his mistress, Grace, as 
 as Widow B-ich; and Sir Nicholas had engaged to marry her, 
 under certain penalties, forced on him by Wheadle and his friend. 
 Sir Frederick, at the conclusion, marries the Widow, to oblige a 
 lady who is fond of him, and the curtain falls upon the customary 
 indecent jokes, and the following uneasy and metrical maxim : — 
 
 " On what small accidents depends our Fate, 
 While Chance, not Prudence, makes us fortunate." 
 
 What the two Bettertons made of Lord Beaufort and Graciana, 
 I do not pretend to say, but Nokes is said to have been " scream- 
 ingly farcical," to adopt an equivalent modern phrase, in Sir Nich- 
 las Cully. His successor, Norris, fell short of the great original 
 in broad humor, but Nokes himself was surpassed by Dogget, who 
 played " Oliver's Knight" with all the comic effect which he im- 
 parted to the then low comedy part of Shylock. It is inexplicable 
 to me how any actor would ever have extracted a laugh from the 
 audience at anything he had to say, or chose to do, when enacting 
 the " Cavalier of the Commonwealth." There is not a humorous 
 speech, nor a witty remark, nor a comic situation for the knight to 
 profit by. In 1664, however, people could laugh heartily at see- 
 ing one of the Protector's knights swindled, and beaten on the 
 stage. The knight is represented as a thirsty drunkard, " all the 
 drier for the last night's wetting," with a more eager desire to at- 
 tack the ladies of cavaliers than cavaliers themselves, and no re- 
 
STAGE KNIGHTS. 297 
 
 luctance to cheat any man who will undertake to throw a main 
 with him at dice. He has, however, great reluctance to pay his 
 losses, when he unconsciously falls into the hands of a greater 
 knave than himself, and bodily declares — 
 
 " I had been a madman to play at such a rate, 
 If I had ever intended to pay." 
 
 He had less boldness in accepting the results of such a declaration, 
 and in meeting his antagonist at the end of a rapier. He is 
 brought to the sticking-point, just as Acres is, by an assurance that 
 his adversary is an arrant coward. The scene of " the Field" is 
 worth quoting in part, inasmuch as it is not only an illustration of 
 the spirit of chivalry, as imputed to Oliver's knights by cavalier- 
 poets, but also as it will, perhaps, serve to show that when Sheri- 
 dan sat down at his table in Orchard Street, Portman Square, to 
 bring Acres and Beverley together in mortal combat, he probably 
 had a copy of Etherege's play before — or the memory of it strong 
 within — him. 
 
 Wheadle and Cully are on the stage : — 
 
 W. What makes you so serious ? 
 
 C. I am sony I did not provide for both our safeties. 
 
 W. How so? 
 
 C. Colonel Hanson is my neighbor, and very good friend. I might have 
 acquainted him with the business, and got him, with a file of musketeers, to 
 secure us all. 
 
 W. But this would not secure your honor. "What would the Avorld have 
 judged. 
 
 C. Let the world have judged what it would ! Have we not had many 
 precedents of late 1 and the world knows not what to judge. 
 
 It may be observed here, that Sir Nicholas may be supposed to 
 be alluding to such men as Hans Behr, who was much addicted to 
 firing printed broadsides at his adversaries, who advertised him as 
 "poltroon" in return. There are some placards having reference 
 to this matter, in the British Museum, which admirably display 
 the caution of the wordsmen and the spirit of the swordsmen of 
 that day. But to resume. Cully, observing that his adversary 
 has not arrived, suggests that his own duty has been fulfilled, and 
 that he " will be going," the more particularly, says the knight, as 
 " the air is so bleak, I can no longer endure it." 
 
298 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 W. Have a little patience. Methinks I see two making toward us in the 
 uext close. 
 
 C. Where ? Where 1 'Tis thern ! 
 
 W. Bear up bravely, now, like a man. 
 
 C. I protest I am the worst dissembler, now, in cases of this nature. 
 
 W. Allons ! Look like a man of resolution. Whither, whither go you 1 
 
 €. But to the next house to make my will, for fear of the worst. Tell 
 them I'll be here again, presently. 
 
 The provident knight is, however, detained, and on Palmer and 
 that gentleman's second appearing, the swords are measured, "and 
 all strip but Cully, who fumbles with his doublet." 
 
 P. Come, sir ! are you ready for this sport ? 
 
 C By-and-by, sir. I will not rend the buttons from my doublet for no 
 man's pleasure. 
 
 And so " Oliver's Knight" continues to procrastinate ; he can 
 not be either pricked or pinked into action ; and at length, plead- 
 ing that his conscience will not let him fight in a wrong cause, he 
 purchases a whole skin, at the price of a promissory note for a 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 I have said that there is no comic situation for the actor who 
 represents Sir Nicholas, but the scene from which the above pas- 
 sages are taken may, perhaps, be an exception to the rule. That 
 Sheridan has profited by it, will be clear to any reader who will 
 take the trouble to compare this scene with the fighting scene in 
 the " Rivals." The latter is far richer in humor, and while we 
 care very little what becomes of Sir Nicholas, we should regret 
 that any harm should befall poor Acres — although he prefers 
 fighting at forty paces, would stand sidewise to be shot at, feels 
 that he would be horribly afraid if he were alone, and confesses that 
 valor oozes out at the palms of his hands when his adversary ap- 
 pears in sight, with pistols for two. 
 
 Sir Nicholas is in spirits again when making love to one whom 
 he considers a woman of rank and fortune. No cavalier could 
 then vie with him in finery. " I protest," he says, " I was at least 
 at sixteen brokers, before I could put myself exactly in the fash- 
 ion." But with all this, he is a craven again when he is called 
 upon to enter and address her who awaits the wooing with impa- 
 tience. " Come !" he exclaims, " I will go to the tavern and swal- 
 
STAGE KNIGHTS. 299 
 
 low two whole quarts of w r ine instantly ; and when I am drunk, 
 ride on a drawer's back, to visit her.'' Wheadle suggests that 
 " some less frolic will do, to begin with." — " I will cut three draw- 
 ers over the pate, then," says the knight, " and go with a tavern- 
 lanthorn before me at noonday ;" — just as very mad gallants were 
 wont to do. 
 
 The liquor has not the effect of rendering Oliver's knight decent, 
 for in proposing the health of " my lord's sister," he does it in the 
 elegant form of " Here's a brimmer to her then, and all the fleas 
 about her ;" offers to break the windows to show his spirit, and in 
 the lady's very presence exclaims, " Hither am I come to be drunk, 
 that you may see me drunk, and here's a health to your flannel 
 petticoat." The latter gentillesse is by way of proof of the knight's 
 quality, for it was of the very essence of polite manners, when a 
 spirited gentleman drank to a spirited lady, to strain the wine 
 through what the Chesterfields and Mrs. Chapones of that day, if 
 such were to be found, would not have blushed to call " their 
 smocks." 
 
 But enough of the way in which the stage represented u one of 
 Oliver's knights." He is not worse than the courtiers and gentle- 
 men by whom he is swindled out of his money and into a wife. 
 Nay, nearly the last sentence put into his mouth is, at least, a com- 
 plimentary testimony to the side of which Sir Nicholas is but an 
 unworthy member. " If I discover this," he remarks, " I am lost. 
 I shall be ridiculous even to our own party." — The reader will, 
 probably, not require to be reminded that before Etherege drew 
 Cully, Jonson had depicted Sogliardo, and that the latter, in the 
 very spirit of Oliver's knight, remarks : — " I do not like the humor 
 of challenge ; it may be accepted." 
 
 The stage, from about the middle of the seventeenth century to 
 nearly the middle of the succeeding century, was uncommonly 
 busy with knights as heroes of new plays. The piece which 
 brought most money to the theatrical treasury, after the " Comical 
 Revenge," was the " Sir Martin Mar-all," an adaptation by Dry- 
 dren, from the " Etourdi" of Moliere. Such adaptations were in 
 fashion, and the heroes of the French author were invariably 
 knighted on their promotion to the English stage. Such was the 
 case with " Sir Solomon, or the Cautious Coxcomb," adapted by 
 
300 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Carill, from Moliere's " Ecole des Femmes." The same course 
 was adopted by Mrs. Behn when she transferred Moliere's " Mal- 
 ade Imaginaire" to the stage at Dorset Gardens, and transformed 
 Argon into Sir Patient Fancy. One of the characters in this in- 
 tolerably indecent play instructs the city knight's lady how to di- 
 vide her time according to the fashion set by "the quality." 
 " From eight to twelve," he says, " you ought to employ in dres- 
 sing. Till two, at dinner. Till five, in visits. Till seven, at the 
 play. Till nine, in the park ; and at ten, to supper with your 
 lover." 
 
 In the " Sir Barnaby Whig, or No Wit like a Woman's," one 
 of D'Urfey's comedies, and produced in 1681, we have again a 
 hero who is described as one of Oliver's knights. The play is 
 avowedly a party piece, and the author, in his prologue, remarks, 
 
 "That he shall know both parties now, he glories ; 
 By hisses, Whigs ; and by their claps, the Tories." 
 
 The audience at the " Theatre Royal," in the days of Charles II., 
 was made especially merry by this poor jest. Sir Barnaby is rep- 
 resented as a Cromwellian fanatic, who will not drink the King's 
 health ; is in an agony of terror at hearing that an army of twenty 
 thousand men is about to sweep every rebel from the land ; turns 
 traitor ; sings a comic song against the Roundheads ; is saluted as 
 Rabbi Achitophel ; offers to turn Roman Catholic or Mohammedan ; 
 and is finally consigned to Newgate. 
 
 Mrs. Behn, in the same year, had her political knight as well as 
 D'Urfey. In this lady's more than usually licentious play, the 
 " City Heiress," performed at Dorset Gardens, she has a Sir Tim- 
 othy Treat-all for her comic hero. She boasts in her introduction 
 that her play is political, loyal, true Tory all over ; and as " Whig- 
 gism has become a jest," she makes a caricature of Sir Timothy, 
 an old, seditious, Oliverian knight, who keeps open house for com- 
 monwealth-men and true-blue Protestants. He is contrasted with 
 two Tory knights, Sir Anthony and Sir Charles Meriwill, and a 
 Tory gentleman, named Wilding. The old Whig knight, however, 
 is by far the least disreputable fellow of the lot. The Tory knights 
 and their friends are rogues, perjurers, and something worse. 
 When they are not on the stage, Mrs. Behn is not afraid to tell 
 
STAGE KNIGHTS. 301 
 
 what they are about, and that in the very plainest language. 
 " D — n the City !" exclaims the courtly Sir Charles. " Ay, ay !" 
 adds his uncle, Sir Anthony, " and all the "Whigs, Charles, d — n 
 all the Whigs!" — And in such wise did Mrs. Afra Behn take 
 vengeance upon political enemies, to the infinite delight of loyal 
 audiences. How the Whig knights ever kept their own against 
 the assaults made on them in plays, prologues, and epilogues, is, as 
 Mr. Slick says, " a caution !" It is a fact, however, that these po- 
 litical plays were far more highly relished than those which merely 
 satirized passing social follies. Audiences roared at the dull jokes 
 against the Oliverian knights, but they had no relish for the rhyme- 
 loving Sir Hercules Buffoon, of Lacy. 
 
 For one stage knight we may be said to be indebted to 
 Charles II. himself. It was from a hint from him that Crowne 
 wrote his " Sir Courtly Nice," produced at the Theatre Royal 
 shortly after the death of Charles. Sir Courtly alludes to the 
 death of one, and the accession of a new, king, in very flattering 
 terms : — 
 
 " What nation upon earth, besides our own, 
 But by a loss like ours had been undone ? 
 Ten ages scarce such royal worth display 
 As England lost and found in one strange day." 
 
 Of all the comedies with knights for their heroes, this one of Sir 
 Courtly Nice retained a place longest on the stage. The hero was 
 originally played by handsome, but hapless Will Mountfort. Cib- 
 ber played it at the Haymarket in Queen Anne's time, 1706, and 
 again at Drury Lane, and before George I. at Hampton Court. 
 Foote and Cibber, jun., and Woodward, were there presentatives 
 of the gallant knight, and under George II. Foote played it, for 
 the first time, at Drury Lane, and the younger Cibber at Covent 
 Garden, in 1746, and Woodward, at the latter house, in 1751. 
 The last-named actor was long the favorite representative of the 
 gentlemanly knight, retaining the character as his own for full 
 a quarter of a century, and being succeeded, but not surpassed in 
 it, by sparkling Lewis, at Covent Garden, in 1781. 
 
 The satire in this piece against the Puritans is of a more refined 
 character than in any other play of the period ; and the contrast 
 between the rash and ardent cavalier and the cautious Puritan is 
 
302 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 very fairly drawn. " Suppose I see not many vices, says the 
 Roundhead, Testimony, " morality is not the thing. The heathens 
 had morality ; and, forsooth, would you have your footman or your 
 coachman to be no better than Seneca ?" This is really compli- 
 mentary to the Cromwellians ; and there is but a good-natured 
 dash of satire in the answer of Testimony, when asked what time 
 of day it may be, that — " Truly, I do believe it is about four. I 
 can not say it positively, for I would not tell a lie for the whole 
 world." 
 
 I find little worthy of notice in other dramatic pieces having 
 knights for their heroes. Southeran produced one entitled, " Sir 
 Anthony Love" at the Theatre Royal in 1691, for the purpose of 
 showing oif Mrs. Mountfort as an errant lady in male attire. 
 
 In the eighteenth century, the knights gave name to a few his- 
 torical pieces not worth recording. The only exceptions are 
 scarcely worthy of more notice. Dodsley's " Sir John Cockle at 
 Court" made our ancestors, of George the Second's time, laugh at 
 the sequel of the " King and the Miller of Mansfield ;" and " Sir 
 Roger de Coverley" was made the hero of a pantomime at Covent 
 Garden in 1746. By this time, however, the fashion was extinct 
 of satirizing living politicians under knightly names. To detail 
 the few exceptions to the rule would only fatigue the perhaps al- 
 ready wearied reader. 
 
 To what a low condition knight and squire could fall may be 
 seen in the Sir Joseph Wittol and Captain Bluffe, in Congreve's 
 comedy, the " Old Batchelor." The only redeeming point about 
 this disreputable pair is, that, cowards and bullies as they are, 
 they have both read a little. The Captain has dipped into history, 
 and he remarks that " Hannibal was a pretty fellow in his day, it 
 must be granted ; but, alas, sir ! were he alive now, he would be 
 nothing ; nothing on the earth." Sir Joseph, the knight, in comi- 
 tatu Bucks, has also indulged in a little reading, but that of a light- 
 er sort than the Captain's. When the gallant Captain affects not 
 to be frightened at the aspect of Sharper, and exclaims, " I am 
 prepared for him now, and he shall find he might have safer 
 roused a sleeping lion," the knight remarks, " Egad, if he should 
 hear the lion roar, he'd cudgel him into an ass, and his primitive 
 braying. Don't you remember the story in iEsop's Fables, Bully? 
 
STAGE KNIGHTS. 303 
 
 Egad, there are good morals to be picked out of iEsop's Fables, 
 let me tell you that ; and ' Reynard the Fox' too ;" to which the 
 deboshed Captain can only reply, " D — n your morals !" as though 
 he despised fiction when compared with history. 
 
 Some of the stage knights are wonderfully great boasters, yet 
 exceedingly dull fellows. I do not know that in the mouth of any 
 one of them there is put so spirited a remark as the great Huniades 
 made to Ulderick, Count of Sicily. The latter asked for a confer- 
 ence with the great governor of Hungary. Huniades bade him 
 come to the Hungarian camp. The offended Ulderick, in a great 
 chafe, replied that it was beneath him to do such a thing, seeing 
 that he was descended from a long line of princely ancestors; 
 whereas Huniades was the first of his family who had ever been 
 raised to honor. The Hungarian very handsomely remarked, " I 
 do not compare myself with your ancestors ; but with you /" This 
 'has always appeared to me as highly dramatic in spirit. There 
 is nothing half so spirited in the knightly pieces brought on the 
 stage during the reign of George III., and which caused infinite 
 delight to very easily-pleased audiences. It is well known that 
 the good-natured Sovereign of England, although unassuming in 
 his domestic character, was exceedingly fond of display in public 
 ceremonies. He used to arrange the paraphernalia of an installa- 
 tion of the Garter with all the energy and care of an anxious stage- 
 manager. The people generally were as anxious to have an idea 
 of the reality. On one occasion, in the preceding reign, they so 
 nearly forced their way into the banqueting-room, where the 
 knights were holding festival, that the troops fired over their heads 
 in order to frighten them into dispersing, Under George III. 
 they were more content to view these splendors through a dramatic 
 lens. 
 
 In 1771, accordingly, the splendors of the then late installation 
 of the Garter were reproduced on the stage, in a masque, called 
 " The Institution of the Garter, or Arthur's Round Table Re- 
 stored." The show was as good as the piece was bad. The for- 
 mer was got up to profit the managers, the latter to flatter or do 
 homage to the King and Queen. It was at once cumbersome and 
 comic. A trio of spirits opened the delectable entertainment by 
 summoning other spirits from every nook and corner of the skies, 
 
304 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 the moon's horns included, to the work of escorting the car of the 
 Male Genius of England, the husband probably of Britannia, down 
 to earth. Nothing can exceed the alacrity with which the spirits 
 and bards of the empyreal heaven obey the summons. They de- 
 scend with the car of the Genius, singing a heavy chorus, ponder- 
 ous as the chariot they help to "waft down," — in which, not the 
 chariot, but the chorus, there is the assurance that 
 
 " The bliss that spotless patriots feel 
 Is kindred to the bliss above," — 
 
 so that we may hope, though we can not feel certain, that there are 
 some few persons here below, who are not unconscious of an ante- 
 past of heaven. 
 
 The Genius is a civil and polished personage, who with due re- 
 membrance to metropolitan fogs, very courteously apologizes to 
 the spirits, that he has been the cause of bringing them down 
 
 " To this grosser atmosphere awhile." 
 
 After such celestial compliments as these, he despatches them to 
 shed heavenly influences over Windsor, wdrile he remains to hold 
 a little colloquy with the Druids, " Britain's old philosophers," as he 
 calls them. He adds an assertion that may, probably, have start- 
 led the Society of Antiquaries of that day, namely, that the afore- 
 said Druids — ■ 
 
 " Still enamored of their ancient haunts, 
 Unseen of mortal eyes, do hover round 
 Their ruined altars and their sacred oaks," 
 
 which may account for that loose heterodoxy which marked the pe- 
 riod when Druids exercised these unseen influences. 
 
 The Genius requests the Druids to have the kindness to repair 
 to Windsor, where the order is hi the act of being founded by Ed- 
 ward, and there direct his choice in the selection of members. 
 This is a very heathenish idea, but Druids and Bards are alike 
 delighted at it ; for, as the Genius remarks, Edward's perspicuity, 
 his intellectual eyes, needed charming 
 
STAGE KNIGHTS. 305 
 
 " from the mists 
 It haply hath contracted from a long 
 Unebbing current of prosperity." 
 
 The heathen priests are flaming patriots, and express their eager- 
 ness to leave Heaven for England, seeing that the new order may 
 be the means to propagate 
 
 " The sovereignty of England, and erect 
 Her monarchs into judges of mankind." 
 
 As this expressed end has not been accomplished, and the order 
 has not propagated the sovereignty of England, we may logically 
 conclude that the Druids themselves hardly knew much of the 
 subject upon which they were singing to their tuneless harps. 
 Meanwhile, the first Bard, in a bass song, petitions the south 
 gales to blow very mildly, and bring blue skies and sweet 
 smells to the installation. 
 
 The ceremony of the installation then opens to the view when 
 all the knights have been created, except the King's son, Edward 
 the Black Prince, who really was not created knight when the 
 order was founded. How far the Druids have succeeded in in- 
 fluencing the choice of the King, there is no possibility of know- 
 ing. No one utters a word, save royal father and son : and the 
 commonplace prose which they deliver does not give us a very 
 exalted idea of the Druidic inspiration. The old sages them- 
 selves, however, are perfectly satisfied with the result ; and in a 
 noisy chorus, they make an assertion which might well have 
 frightened the Archbishop of Canterbury — had he cared about 
 the matter. After vaticinating that the name of the Prince 
 should roll down through the tide of ages, they add, that glory- 
 shall fire him, and virtue inspire him, 
 
 " Till blessed and blessing, 
 Power possessing, 
 From earth to heav.en he lifts his soul," — 
 
 a feat which one would like to see put upon canvass by a Pre- 
 Raphaelite. 
 
 While the Knights are supposed to be preparing to pass to the 
 hall, the scene takes us to the front of the castle, where crowds 
 
 20 
 
306 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. • 
 
 of liege and loyal people are assembled. First Citizen, " very 
 like a whale indeed," sings a comic song, which, as a specimen 
 of the homage offered to monarch and consort, more than four- 
 score years ago, is worth transcribing — for both its imagery and 
 syntax : — 
 
 " Oh, the glorious installation ! 
 
 Happy nation ! 
 You shall see the King and Queen : 
 
 Such a scene ! 
 
 Valor he, sir ; 
 
 Virtue she, sir ; 
 Which our hearts will ever win. 
 
 Sweet her face is, 
 
 With such graces 
 Show what goodness dwells within. 
 
 " Oh, the glorious installation ! 
 
 Happy nation ! 
 You shall see the noble knights : 
 
 Charming sights ! 
 
 Feathers wagging, 
 
 Velvet dragging, 
 Trailing, sailing, on the ground ; 
 
 Loud in talking, 
 
 Proud in walking, 
 Nodding, ogling, smirking round/' 
 
 The banquet over, and more comic business, as dreary as the 
 song above quoted, being concluded, King Edward walks forth 
 into the garden for refreshment — and there the Genius of Eng- 
 land takes him by the hand. Edward, we are sorry to say, knows 
 so little of this Genius, that he boldly asks Mm, " What art thou, 
 stranger ?" We should, only with reluctance, trouble our readers 
 with all this unrecognised Genius says in reply to the royal in- 
 quirer, but one passage may be transcribed to show what the 
 popular spirit was thought to be in the last century. 
 
 " Know that those actions which are great and good, 
 Receive a nobler sanction from the free 
 And universal voices from all mankind, 
 Which is the voice of Heaven, than from the highest, 
 The most illustrious act of royal power." 
 
STAGE KNIGHTS. 307 
 
 This maxim of the Genius of England further shows that the 
 individual in question not only passed off prose for blank verse, 
 but stole the phrase of " Vox populi vox Dei," and tried to render 
 it unrecognisable by indefinite extension. 
 
 That the sentiment is not very much to the taste of the Mon- 
 arch may be conjectured from the fact that he sulkily lets it pass 
 without any comment, and very naturally falls asleep of being 
 talked-at by so heavily-pinioned a Genius. The latter avails 
 lmnself of the opportunity to exhibit to the slumbering Monarch 
 a vision of the future of England, down to the era of George 
 and Charlotte. The spectacle soothes him still less than the 
 speech, though oppressive ecstacy may be sweet, and Edward 
 springs into wakefulness, and loudly exclaiming that 
 
 " This is too much for ham an strength to bear," 
 
 the loquacious Genius flies at him again with some remarkable 
 figures of speech, to which the worn-out Edward answers nothing. 
 The Genius, unwilling to attribute his taciturnity to rudeness, finds 
 a satisfactory solution in the conclusion that 
 
 "Astonishment seals up his lips." 
 
 The founder of the " Garter" will not provoke the eloquence 
 of the heavenly visiter by unsealing the lips which astonishment 
 is supposed to have sealed up, and the remainder of the piece is 
 left to Genius and chorus, who unite in a musical asseveration, to 
 the effect that the reigning Sovereign of England is 
 
 " The great miracle on earth, a patriot king," 
 
 and so terminates, amid the most vociferous plaudits, the scenic 
 story of the Garter, enacted in celebration of the great installa- 
 tion of 1771. 
 
 The real installation was, by far, a more cheerful matter than 
 its theatrical counterfeit. It took place on the 25th of July. At 
 this ceremony the King raised to the dignity of Knights of the 
 illustrious order, his sons the Prince of Wales and the Bishop of 
 Osnaburg, his brother the Duke of Cumberland, with the Queen's 
 brother, the Duke of Mecklenburgh, and Prince Henry of Bruns- 
 
308 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 wick, the Dukes of Marlborough and Grafton, and the Earls of 
 Gower and Albermarle. The festival occupied the entire day. 
 Four mortal hours in the morning were consumed in making the 
 Knights, after which Sovereign and chapter dined together in St. 
 George's Hall. While the banquet was progressing, Queen 
 Charlotte sat in a gallery, looking on. She was brilliantly sur- 
 rounded, and had at her right side the pretty Princess Eoyal, and 
 the infant Prince Ernest at her left. One of her Majesty's 
 brothers stood by each royal child. On the right of the canopy 
 under which the King dined, was a long table, at which were 
 seated all the Knights, in full view of the occupants of raised 
 seats and a gallery in front. At the end of the first course, the 
 good-natured Monarch was determined to make a Knight Bache- 
 lor of some deserving individual present, and he rendered good 
 Mr. Dessac (clerk of the check, belonging to the band of Gentle- 
 men Pensioners) supremely happy by selecting him. As soon as 
 the other courses had been served, and the banquet was conclu- 
 ded, which was not till between six and seven o'clock, the whole 
 of the cavaliers and company separated in haste, hurrying to 
 their respective rooms or hotels, to dress for the ball which was 
 to be held in the Great Guard-Poom. When all the guests were 
 there assembled, the King and Queen entered the apartment about 
 nine o'clock. Whereupon the Duke of Gloucester danced a couple 
 of minuets with a brace of duchesses — Graften and Marlborough. 
 The minuets were continued till eleven o'clock. No one seemed 
 to tire of the stately, graceful dance, and it was only during 
 the hour that followed, that any young lady, as anxious as the 
 elegant American belle, who told Mr. Oliphant at Minnesota 
 that " she longed to shake the knots out of her legs," had a chance 
 of indulging in her liveliness. During one hour — from eleven 
 to midnight — country dances were accomplished. I say accom- 
 plished, for only three were danced — and each set procured 
 twenty minutes of very active exercise. Midnight had scarcely 
 been tolled out by the castle clock when the festive throng sepa- 
 rated — and thus closed one of the most brilliant installations that 
 Windsor had ever seen, since Edward first became the founder of 
 the order. If there was any drawback to the gratification whieh 
 the King felt on this occasion, it was at beholding Wilkes and his 
 
STAGE KNIGHTS. 309 
 
 daughter conspicuously seated among the spectators in the court- 
 yard ; whither the man whom the King hated had penetrated by 
 means of a ticket from Lord Tankerville. It was at this period that 
 Mr. Fox revived, for a few court-days, the fashion of appearing 
 at the drawing-room in red-heeled shoes. To the public, these 
 matters were far more comic than the comic portion of the " In- 
 stallation," in which (setting aside the Edward III. of Aikin, and 
 the Genius of England, played by Reddish) King enacted Sir 
 Dingle, a court fool knighted ; Parsons, Nat Needle ; and Weston, 
 Roger. Never was foolish knight played by an actor so chival- 
 rous of aspect as King. 
 
 I will avail myself of this opportunity to state that at solemn 
 ceremonies, like that above named, four of our kings of England 
 were knighted by their own subjects. These were Edward III., 
 Henry VI. and VII., and Edward VI. The latter was dubbed 
 by the Lord Protector, who was himself empowered to perform 
 the act by letters patent, under the great seal. At a very early 
 period, priests, or prelates rather, sometimes conferred the honor 
 on great public occasions. The Westminster Synod deprived them 
 of this privilege in 1102. 
 
 It has been said that English knights wearing foreign orders, 
 without permission of their own sovereign, are no more knights 
 in reality than those stage knights of whom I have been treating. 
 This, however, is questionable, if so great an authority as Coke 
 be not in error. That great lawyer declares that a knight, by 
 whomsoever created, can sue and be sued by his knightly title, 
 and that such is not the case with persons holding other foreign 
 titles, similar to those of the English peerage. Let me add that, 
 among other old customs, it was once common in our armies for 
 knighthood to be conferred previous to a battle, to arouse courage, 
 rather than afterward, as is the case now — after the action, in 
 order to reward valor. Even this fashion is more reasonable than 
 that of the Czar, who claps stars and crosses of chivalry on the 
 bosoms of beaten generals, to make them pass in Muscovy for 
 conquerors. 
 
 In connection with the stage, knights have figured sometimes 
 before, as well as behind the curtain. Of all the contests ever 
 maintained, there was never, in its way a fiercer than that which 
 
310 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIK DAYS. 
 
 took place between Sir "William Rawlings, and young Tom Dibclin 
 The son of "tuneful Charlie," born in 1771, and held at the font, 
 as the " Lady's Magazine" used to say, by Garrick, was not above 
 four years of age when he played Cupid to Mrs. Siddons' Venus, 
 in Shakespeare's Jubilee. It was hardly to be expected that after 
 this and a course of attendance as choir-boy at St. Paul's, he would 
 settle down quietly to learn upholstery. This was expected of 
 him by his very unreasonable relatives, who bound him appren- 
 tice to the city knight, Sir William Rawlings, a then fashionable 
 upholsterer in Moorfields. The boy was dull as the mahogany he 
 had to polish, and the knight could never make him half so bright 
 in business matters. " Tom Dibdin," thus used to remark the city 
 cavalier — "Tom Dibdin is the stupidest hound on earth!" The 
 knight, however, changed his mind when his apprentice, grown up 
 to man's estate, produced " The Cabinet." Sir William probably 
 thought that the opera was the upholstery business set to music. 
 But before this point was reached, dire was the struggle between 
 the knight and the page, who would not " turn over a new leaf." 
 When work was over, the boy was accustomed to follow it up with 
 a turn at the play — generally in the gallery of the Royalty 
 Theatre. On one of these occasions the knight followed him 
 thither, dragged him out, gave him a sound thrashing, and, next 
 morning, brought him before that awfully squinting official, John 
 Wilkes. The struggle ended in a drawn battle, and Tom aban- 
 doned trade : and instead of turning out patent bedsteads, turned 
 out the " English Fleet," and became the father of " Mother 
 Goose." He would have shown less of his relationship to the 
 family of that name, had he stuck to his tools ; in the latter case 
 he might have taken his seat as Lord Mayor, in a chair made by 
 himself, and in those stirring times he might have become as good 
 a knight as his master. 
 
 As it was, the refuse of knighthood had a hard time of it. He 
 was actor of all work, wrote thousands of songs, which he sold as 
 cheap as chips, and composed four pieces for Astley's Theatre, for 
 which he received fourteen pounds — hardly the price of a couple 
 of arm-chairs. How he flourished and fell after this, may be seen 
 in his biography. He had fortune within his grasp at one time, 
 but he lost his hold when he became proprietor of a theatre. The 
 
STAGE KNIGHTS. 311 
 
 ex-apprentice of the old knight-upholder dould not furnish his 
 own house with audiences, and the angry knight himself might 
 have been appeased could his spirit have seen the condition into 
 which " poor Tom" had fallen just previous to his death, some 
 twenty years ago. 
 
 But I fear I have said more than enough about stage knights ; 
 may I add some short gossip touching real knights with stage 
 ladies ? Before doing so, I may just notice that the wedded wife 
 of a bona fide knight once acted on the English boards under the 
 chivalric name — and a time-honored one it is in Yorkshire — of 
 her husband, Slingsby. Dame, or Lady Slingsby, who had been 
 formerly a Mrs. Lee, was a favorite actress in the days of James 
 II. She belonged to the Theatre Royal, resided in St. James's 
 parish, and was buried in Pancras church-yard in March 1693-4. 
 In the list of the Slingsbys, baronets, of Scriven, given in Har- 
 borough's " History of Knaresborough," Sir Henry Slingsby, who 
 died in 1692, is the only one of whose marriage no notice is taken* 
 But to our stage ladies and gallant lovers. 
 
312 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS 
 
 STAGE LADIES AND THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 
 
 " Our happy love may hare a secret church, 
 Under the church, as Faith's was under Paul's, 
 Where we may carry on our sweet devotion, 
 And the cathedral marriage keep its state, 
 And all its decencies and ceremonies." 
 
 Ceowne, The Married Beau. 
 
 After the loose fashion of Master Crowne's Married Beau, it 
 was no uncommon thing for gallants once to woo the mimic ladies 
 of the scene. 
 
 From the time that ladies first appeared upon the stage, they 
 seem to have exercised a powerful attraction upon the cavaliers. 
 Under date of the 18th October, 1666, Evelyn says in his Diary: 
 " This night was acted my Lord Broghill's tragedy, ' Mustapha,' 
 before their majesties at court, at which I was present, very seldom 
 going to the public theatres, for many reasons, now, as they are 
 abused to an atheistical liberty, foul and undecent women now 
 (and never till now) permitted to appear and act, who, inflaming 
 several young noblemen and gallants, became their misses, and to 
 some their wives ; witness the Earl of Oxford, Sir R. Howard, 
 Prince Rupert, the Earl of Dorset, and another greater person 
 than any of them, who fell into their snares, to the reproach of 
 their noble families, and ruin of both body and soul. I was in- 
 vited by my Lord Chamberlain to see this tragedy, exceedingly 
 well written, though in my mind I did not approve of any such 
 pastime in a time of such judgments and calamities." 
 
 A year and a half earlier than the date of the above entry, 
 namely, April 3, 1665, Pepys notices the same play, with some 
 allusions to the ladies : " To a play at the Duke's of my Lord 
 Orrery's, called ' Mustapha,' which being not good, made Better- 
 ton's part and Ianthe's but ordinary too. All the pleasure of the 
 play was, the king and my Lady Castlemaine were there ; and 
 
STAGE LADIES AND THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 313 
 
 pretty witty Xell of the King's House, and the younger Marshall 
 sat next as, which pleased me mightily." The play, however, is 
 not so poor a one as Pepys describes it, and the cast was excel- 
 lent. Betterton played Solyman the Magnificent. Mustapha and 
 Zanga, the sons of Solyman, were played by Harris and Smith ; 
 and Young made a capital Cardinal. Mrs. Betterton was the 
 Poxalana ; and Mrs. Davies, one of those ladies who, like her 
 sisters, the two Marshalls, Hughes and Xelly, exercised the fatal 
 attraction over young noblemen and gallants, deplored by Evelyn, 
 was the magnificent Queen of Hungary. Mustapha continued to 
 be the favorite play until the theatre closed, when the plague began 
 to spread. Pepys's •• Ianthe" was Mrs. Betterton, of whom he 
 says, on the 22d October, 1662, "the players do tell me that Bet- 
 terton is not married to Ianthe, as they say ; but also that he is a 
 very sober, serious man, studious and humble, following of his 
 studies, and is rich already with what he gets and saves." Bet- 
 terton, however, married the lady, Miss Saunderson, in 1663. 
 She had been famous for her Ianthe in Davenants " Siege of 
 Rhodes ;" and she played Shakespeare's heroines with great effect. 
 Pepys rightly designates the author of the play, Lord Orrery. 
 Lord Broghill was made Earl of Orrery, five years before Evelyn 
 saw his play. I may add that Mustapha has appeared in half-a- 
 dozen different versions on the stage. Probably the worst of these 
 was Mallet's ; the latter author created great amusement by one 
 of his passages, in which he said : — 
 
 " Future sultans 
 Have shunned the marriage tie ;" — 
 
 a confusion of tenses which has been compared with a similar 
 error in the sermons of so correct a writer as Blair (vol. v., third 
 edition, page 224), "in future periods the light dawned more and 
 more." 
 
 Although Evelyn, in 1666, says that '"'never till now" were 
 women admitted to assume characters on the stage, he is not quite 
 correct in his assertion. There were actresses full thirty years 
 previous to that period. Thus, in 1632, the " Court Beggar" was 
 acted at the Cockpit. In the last act, Lady Strangelove says : — 
 •• If you have a short speech or two, the boy's a pretty actor, and 
 
314 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 his mother can play her part : women-actors now grow in request." 
 Our ancestors wisely followed a foreign fashion when they ceased 
 to employ boys in female characters. Prynne says, in 1633, 
 " They have now their female players in Italy and other foreign 
 parts;" and in Michaelmas 1629, they had French women-actors 
 in a play personated at Blackfriars, to which there was a great 
 resort. Geneste quotes Freshwater as writing thus of French 
 actresses in Paris, in 1629 : "Yet the women are the best actors ; 
 they play their own parts, a thing much desired in England." 
 
 In Davenant's patent for opening Lincoln's-inn Fields, in 1661, 
 permission was given for the engaging of women as actresses, on 
 the ground that the employment of men in such parts had given 
 great offence. I more particularly notice this matter, because it 
 was a knight who first opened a theatre with a regular female 
 troupe added to the usual number of male actors. Sir William's 
 ladies were Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Saunderson, Mrs. Davies, Mrs. 
 Long, Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. Norris, Mrs. Holden, and Mrs. Jennings. 
 The first four were Sir William's principal actresses, and these 
 were boarded in the knight's own dwelling-house. Their title of 
 "Mistress" does not necessarily imply that they were married 
 ladies, but rather that they were old enough to be so. 
 
 This knight, too, was the first who introduced scenery on the 
 stage. I will add {par parenthese) that it was a priest who first 
 suggested the levelling of the pit with the stage, for the purpose 
 of masquerades and balls. 
 
 Prynne was not among those who fancied that morality would 
 profit by the introduction of actresses. He had his misgivings as 
 to the effects likely to be produced on the susceptible young gal- 
 lants of his day. Touching the appearance of the French ac- 
 tresses at the Blackfriars Theatre, noticed above, he calls it " an 
 impudent, shameful, un-womanish, graceless, if not more than 
 
 w ish attempt." The fashion was, undoubtedly, first set by 
 
 the court, and by no less a person than a queen. Anne of Den- 
 mark, wife of James I., acted a ■ part in a pastoral. They who 
 remember some of the incidents of the training she gave her son, 
 the princely knight young Henry, will hardly think that Anne 
 gave dignity to the occupation she temporarily assumed. 
 
 Mrs. Saunderson is said to have been the first regularly-engaged 
 
STAGE LADIES AND THE ROMANCE OP HISTORY. 315 
 
 actress who opened her lips on the English stage. Had she and 
 her compeers only half the charms which report ascribed to them, 
 they must have afforded far more pleasure to audience and spec- 
 tators than the " beautiful woman-actor," Stephen Hamerton Hart, 
 with his womanly dignity ; Burt, with his odious female sprightli- 
 ness ; or Goffe, who was as hearty and bustling as old Mrs. Dav- 
 enport. King Charles himself and his cavaliers, too, must have 
 been especially delighted when they were no longer kept waiting 
 for the commencement of a play, on the ground that the Quee?\ 
 was not yet shaved." 
 
 It is curious that there were some people not near so strait-laced 
 as Prynne, who considered that public virtue would suffer ship- 
 wreck if actresses were permitted to establish themselves in the 
 general favor. The opposite party, of course, went to an opposite 
 extreme ; and in 1672, not only were " Philaster," and Killigrew's 
 " Parson's Wedding," played entirely by women, but one of the 
 " Miss" Marshalls, gay daughter of a Presbyterian minister, on 
 both occasions spoke the prologue and epilogue in male attire. 
 " Philaster" is simply an absurd piece, which was rendered pop- 
 ular by Hart and Nell Gwyn ; but with respect to Killigrew's 
 piece, it is so disgusting, from the commencement to the finale, 
 that I can hardly fancy how any individuals, barely alive to their 
 humanity, could be brought to utter and enact the turpitudes which 
 Killigrew set down for them, or that an audience could be kept 
 from fleeing from the house before the first act was over. 
 
 But the gallants could endure anything rather than a return to 
 such effects as are alluded to by a contemporary writer, who, by 
 way of introducing a female Desdemona, said in his prologue — 
 
 " Our women are defective and so sized 
 You'd think they were some of the guard disguised ; 
 For, to speak truth, men act that are between 
 Eorty and fifty, wenches of fifteen ; 
 "With brow so large, and nerve so uncompliant, 
 When you call Desdemona — enter Giant." 
 
 Half a century elapsed before knight or gentleman took an ac- 
 tress from the stage, for the purpose of making her his wife. The 
 squires, in this case, had precedence of the knights ; and the anti- 
 quary, Martin Folkyes, led the way by espousing Lucretia Brad- 
 
316 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 shaw, the uncorrupted amid corruption, and the original Corinna 
 in the " Confederacy," Dorinda in the " Beaux Stratagem," and 
 Arabella Zeal in the " Fair Quaker of Deal." This marriage 
 took place in 1713, and there was not a happier hearth in England 
 than that of the antiquary and the actress. A knight of the Gar- 
 ter followed, with an earl's coronet, and in 1735 the great Lord 
 Peterborough acknowledged his marriage with that daughter of 
 sweet sounds, Anastasia Robinson. This example at once nattered, 
 provoked, and stimulated the ladies, one of whom, the daughter 
 of Earl de Waldegrave, Lady Henrietta Herbert, married young 
 Beard the actor. This was thought " low," and another knight's 
 daughter was less censured for marrying her father's footman. 
 The " Beggars' Opera" gave two coronets to two Pollys. Lavinia 
 Fenton (Betswick), the original Polly at Lincoln's Inn, in 1728, 
 became Duchess of Bolton a few years later; and in 1813, no 
 less a man than Lord Thurlow married Mary Catherine Bolton, 
 who was scarcely an inferior Polly to the original lady, who gave 
 up Polly to become a Bolton. 
 
 The squires once more took their turn when Sheridan married 
 Miss Lindley ; but before the last century closed, Miss Farren 
 gave her hand to " the proudest earl in England," the Earl of 
 Derby, Knight of the Bath. In 1807, knight and squire took two 
 ladies from the stage. In that year Mr. Heathcote married the 
 beautiful Miss Searle ; and Earl Craven married Louisa Brunton. 
 We have still among us five ex-actresses who married men of the 
 degree of noble, knight, or squire. These are Miss Stephens, the 
 widowed Countess of Essex ; Miss Foote, the widowed Countess of 
 Harrington ; Miss O'Neill the widow of Sir William Beecher, Bart. ; 
 Mrs. Nisbett, the relict of the bold Sir Felix Boothby ; and Miss 
 M. Tree, whose late husband, Mr. Bradshaw, was at one time 
 M. P. for Canterbury. 
 
 There is something romantic in the lives of all these ladies, but 
 most in that of ' ; Lizzy Farren," and as the life of that lady of a 
 Knight of the Bath has something in common with the career of 
 a celebrated legal knight and judge, I will take some of its inci- 
 dents as the chief points in the following sketch, which is a sup- 
 plementary chapter to the Romance of History, and perhaps not 
 the least interesting one in such a series. 
 
STAGE LADIES AND THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 317 
 
 If gayety consists in noise, then was the market-place of Salis- 
 bury, toward the close of Christmas Eve, 1769, extremely joyous 
 and glad. In the centre, on a raised stage, his Worship the May- 
 or was inaugurating the holyday-time, by having a bout at single- 
 stick with an itinerant exhibitor of the art of self-defence from 
 London. The " professor" had been soliciting the magisterial 
 permission to set up his stage in the market-place, and he had 
 not only received full license, but the chief magistrate himself con- 
 descended to take a stick and try his strength with the professor. 
 
 It was an edifying sight, and bumpkins and burgesses enjoyed it 
 consumedly. The professional fencer allowed his adversary to 
 count many " hits" out of pure gratitude. But he had some self- 
 respect, and in order that his reputation might not suffer in the 
 estimation of the spectators, he wound up the " set-to" by dealing 
 a stroke on the right-worshipful skull, which made the mayor im- 
 agine that chaos was come again, and that all about him was 
 dancing confusedly into annihilation. 
 
 " I am afraid I have accidentally hurt your worship's head," 
 said the wickedly sympathizing single-stick player. 
 
 " H'm !" murmured the fallen great man, with a ghastly smile, 
 and Iris's seven hues upon his cheek, " don't mention it : there's 
 nothing in it !" 
 
 '•' I am truly rejoiced," replied the professor to his assistant, 
 with a wink of the eye, " that his worship has not lost his senses." 
 
 " Oh, ay !" exclaimed the rough aide, " he's about as wise as 
 ever he was." 
 
 The single-stick player looked like Pizarro, who, when he did 
 kill a friend occasionally— "his custom i' th' afternoon" — always 
 went to the funeral in a mourning suit and a droop of the eye — 
 intended for sympathy. In the meantime the mayor, who had 
 been fancying himself in a balloon, and that he was being whirled 
 away from his native town, began to think that the balloon was 
 settling to earth again, and that the representation of chaos had 
 been indefinitely deferred. He continued, however, holding on by 
 the rail, as ifihe balloon was yet unsteady, and he only complained 
 of a drumming in the ears. 
 
 At that moment the not-to-be-mistaken sound of a real drum 
 fell in harsh accompaniment upon his singing-ears, and it had one 
 
318 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 good effect, that of bringing back the magistrate and the man. 
 Both looked through the rather shaken windows of the one body, 
 and indignation speedily lighted up. from within. 
 
 The sound came from the suburb of Fisherton, but it swelled 
 insultingly nearer and nearer, as though announcing that it was 
 about to be beaten in the borough, despite the lack of magisterial 
 sanction. The great depository of authority began to gaze in 
 speechless horror, as the bearer of the noisy instrument made 
 his appearance in the market-place at the head of a small proces- 
 sion, which was at once seen to consist of a party of strolling actors. 
 
 The drummer was a thick-set man, with nothing healthy look- 
 ing about him but his nose, and that looked too healthy. He was 
 the low comedian, and was naturally endowed to assume that dis- 
 tinctive line. 
 
 He was followed by three or four couple of " the ladies and gen- 
 tlemen of the company," of some of whom it might be said, that 
 shoes were things they did not much stand upon. They had a 
 shabby genteel air about them, looked hungry and happy ; and 
 one or two wore one hand in the pocket, upon an economizing 
 principle in reference to gloves. The light comedian cut jokes 
 with the spectators, and was soon invited to the consequence he 
 aimed at — an invitation to "take a glass of wine." The women 
 were more tawdry-looking than the men, but they wore a light- 
 hearted, romping aspect — all, except the young lady who played 
 Ophelia and Columbine, who carried a baby, and looked as if she 
 had not been asleep since it was born, which was probably the case. 
 
 The cortege was closed by a fine, gentleman-like man, who led 
 by the hand a little girl some ten years old. No one could look 
 for a moment at them, without at once feeling assured that there 
 was something in them which placed them above the fellows with 
 whom they consorted. They were father and daughter. He 
 manager ; she a species of infant phenomenon. In his face were 
 to be traced the furrows of disappointment, and in his eye the 
 gleam of hope. Her face was as faces of the young should ever 
 be, full of enjoyment, love, and feeling. The last two were espe- 
 cially there for the father, whose hand she held, and into whose 
 face she looked, ever and anon, with a smile which never failed to 
 be repaid in similar currency. 
 
STAGE LADIES AND THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 319 
 
 The refined air of the father, and the graceful bearing of the 
 modest daughter, won commendations from all beholders. He 
 was an ex-surgeon of Cork, who had given up his profession in 
 order to follow the stage. People set him down as insane, and so 
 he was, but it was an insanity which made a countess of his 
 daughter. His name was Farren, and his child, pet daughter of 
 a pretty mother, was the inimitable Lizzy. 
 
 If the mayor could have read into history, he would have knelt 
 down and kissed Lizzy Farren's shoe-buckles. As he could not 
 so read, he only saw in the sire a vagabond, and in the child a 
 mountebank. On the former he hurled down the whole weight 
 of his magisterial wrath. It was in vain that the manager declared 
 he was on his way to solicit the mayor's license to act in Salisbury. 
 That official gentleman declared that it was an infraction of the 
 law to pass from the suburb of Fisherton into the borough of 
 Salisbury before the mayor's permission had been previously 
 signified. 
 
 "And that permission I will never give," said his worship. 
 " "We are a godly people here, and have no taste for rascal-players. 
 As his majesty's representative, I am bound to encourage no 
 amusements that are not respectable." 
 
 " But our young king," interrupted Mr. Farren, " is himself a 
 great patron of the theatre." 
 
 This was worse than a heavy blow at single-stick; and the 
 mayor was the more wrath as he had no argument ready to meet 
 it. After looking angry for a moment, a bright thought struck 
 him. 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir ! You will not, I hope, teach a mayor either fact 
 or duty. We know, sir, what the king (God bless him !) patron- 
 izes. His majesty does not patronize strollers. He goes regularly 
 to an established church, sir, and to an established theatre ; and so, 
 sir, I, as mayor, support only establishments. Good heavens ! 
 what would become of the throne and the altar, if a Mayor of 
 Sarum were to do otherwise ?" 
 
 As Mr. Farren did not well know, he could not readily tell ; 
 and as he stood mute, the mayor continued to pour down upon 
 the player and his vocation, a shower of obloquy. At every al- 
 lusion which he made to his predilection for amusements that were 
 
320 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 respectable and instructive, the single-stick player and his man 
 drew themselves up, cried " Hear / hear /" and looked down upon 
 the actors with an air of burlesque contempt. The actors, men 
 and women, returned the look with a burst of uncontrollable 
 laughter. The mayor took this for deliberate insult, aimed at him- 
 self and at what he chose to patronize. His proteges looked the 
 more proud, and became louder than ever in their self-applaudiug 
 " Hear ! hear !" The players, the while, shrieked with laughter. 
 Even Mr. Farren and Lizzy could not refrain from risibility, for 
 the stick-player and his man were really members of the company. 
 The former was Mr. Frederick Fitzmontague, who was great in 
 Hamlet. His man was the ruffian in melodramas, and the clown 
 in pantomimes, and as he did a little private business of his own 
 by accepting an engagement from a religious society, during the 
 dull season of the year, to preach on the highways against theatri- 
 cals, Mr. Osmond Brontere was usually known by the cognomen 
 of Missionary Jack. 
 
 The magisterial refusal to license this wandering company to 
 play in Salisbury, was followed by altercation ; and altercation by 
 riot. The multitude took part with the actors, and they hooted 
 the mayor ; and the latter, viewing poor Farren as the cause and 
 guilty mover of all that had occurred, summarily ordered his ar- 
 rest ; and, in spite of all remonstrance, resistance, or loudly-ex- 
 pressed disgust, the manager was ultimately lodged in the cage. 
 The mob, then, satisfied at having had a little excitement, and 
 caring nothing more about the matter, at length separated, and re- 
 paired to their respective homes. They went all the quicker that 
 the rain had begun to descend in torrents ; and they took little no- 
 tice of poor Lizzy, who went home in the dusk, weeping bitterly, 
 and led by the hands of the matronly Ophelia and Missionary 
 Jack. 
 
 Ere morning dawned, a change had come over the scene. The 
 rain had ceased. A hard frost had set in. All Salisbury looked 
 as if it were built upon a frozen lake. The market-place itself 
 was a mer de glace. Christmas-day was scarcely visible when a 
 boy of early habits, standing at the door of an upholsterer's shop, 
 which bore above it the name of Burroughs, fancied he saw some- 
 thing moving with stealthy pace across the market-place ; and he 
 
STAGE LADIES AND THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 321 
 
 amused himself by watching it through the gloom. It was devel- 
 oped, after a while, into the figure of a thinly-clad girl, bearing in 
 her arms a bowl of hot milk. She trod cautiously, and looked, 
 now down at her feet, now across the wide square, to measure the 
 distance she had yet to go. Each little foot was put forward with 
 hesitation, and so slowly was progress made, that there was good 
 chance of the boiling milk being frozen, before it had been carried 
 half-way to its destination. 
 
 The girl was Lizzy Farren, and in the bowl, which between her 
 arms looked as graceful as urn clasped by Arcadian nymph, lay 
 the chief portion of a breakfast destined, on this sad Christmas 
 morning, for her captive sire in the cage. 
 
 " She'll be down !" said young Burroughs, as he saw her par- 
 tially slip. Lizzy, however, recovered herself; but so alarmed 
 was she at her situation, so terrified when she measured the dis- 
 tance she had to accomplish by that which she had already trav- 
 ersed, that she fairly stood still near the centre of the market-place, 
 and wept aloud over the hot bowl and her cold position. It was 
 then that the young knight recognised the crisis when he was 
 authorized to interfere. He made a run from the door, shot one 
 leg in advance, drew the other quickly after him, and went sliding, 
 with express-train speed, close up to Lizzy's feet. She no sooner 
 saw the direful prospect of collision than she shrieked with an en- 
 ergy which roused all the rooks in the close. 
 
 u Hold hard !" exclaimed the merry-faced boy ; " hold hard ! 
 that's myself, you Lizzy, and the milk. Hold hard !" he continued, 
 as he half held her up, half held on to her. " Hold hard ! or we 
 shall all be down together." 
 
 " Oh, where do you come from ? and how do you know my 
 name is Lizzy ?" 
 
 " Well ! Mr. Fitzmontague lodges in our house, and he told us 
 all about you, last night. And he said, as sure as could be, you 
 would be awake before anybody in Salisbury. And sure enough, 
 here you are, almost before daylight." 
 
 By the help of the young cavalier, the distressed damsel was 
 relieved from her perplexity. Young Burroughs offered to carry 
 the bowl, which she stoutly refused. " No one," she said, " shall 
 carry my father's breakfast to him, but myself, on such a morning." 
 
 21 
 
322 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 And so, her deliverer walked tenderly by her side, holding her 
 cautiously up, nor ceased from his care, until Lizzy and her burden 
 had safely reached the cage. Through the bars of the small win- 
 dow, Farren had watched her coming ; and he hailed her arrival 
 with a " God bless you, my own child !" 
 
 "Oh, papa!" said Lizzy, weeping again, and embracing the 
 bowl as warmly as if it had been her father himself; " oh, papa ! 
 what would mamma and my little sisters, and all our friends in 
 Liverpool say, if they knew how we are beginning our Christmas 
 day?" 
 
 " Things unknown are unfelt, my darling. We will tell them 
 nothing about it, till Fortune gilds over the memory of it. But 
 what do you bring, Lizzy? — or rather, why do I ask? It is my 
 breakfast ; and Lizzy herself has had none." 
 
 A pretty altercation ensued ; but Lizzy gained her point ; and 
 not one drop would she taste till her sire had commenced the re- 
 past. Aided by young Burroughs,, she held the lip of the bowl 
 through the bars of the cage ; and the little English maiden smiled, 
 for the first time since yesterday, at beholding her sire imbibe the 
 quickening draught. It was not till three years after that Barry 
 and his wife played Evander and Euphrasia in the Grecian 
 Daughter, or Farren would have drawn a parallel suitable to the 
 occasion. He was not so well up in history as in theatricals ; and 
 on the stage, history has a terrible time of it. Witness this very 
 tragedy in which Murphy has made Evander, King of Sicily, and 
 confounded Dionysius the elder, with his younger namesake. To 
 be sure, pleasant Palmer, who played the character, was about as 
 wise as Murphy. 
 
 When the primitive breakfast was concluded, Lizzy stood sad 
 and silent ; and the father sadly and silently looked down at her ; 
 while young Burroughs leaned against the wall, as sad and silent 
 as either of them. And so a weary two hours passed ; at the end 
 of which, a town-constable appeared, accompanied by a clerical 
 gentleman, and empowered to give liberty to the captive. When 
 the constable told the manager that his liberation was owing to 
 the intercession made in his behalf, by the Reverend Mr. Snod- 
 grass, who had just arrived in Salisbury, Lizzy clapped her hands 
 with agitation, for she saw that the clerical interceder was no other 
 
STAGE LADIES AND THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY. 323 
 
 than Missionary Jack. " Oh, Mr. Brontere," said the carious girl, 
 when they had all reached home together, " how did you ever 
 manage it ?" 
 
 " Well !" said the enterprising actor, with a laugh ; " I called on 
 his worship, to inquire what Christmas charities might be accepta- 
 ble ; and if there were any prisoners whom my humble means 
 might liberate. He named your papa, and the company have 
 paid what was necessary. His worship was not inexorable, par- 
 ticularly as I incidentally told him his Majesty patronized, the 
 other day, an itinerant company at Datchet. As for how I did it. 
 I rather think I am irresistible in the dress in which poor Will 
 Havard, only two years ago, played ' Old Adam.' A little inge- 
 nuity, as you see, has made it look very like a rector's costume ; 
 and, besides," said Missionary Jack, " I sometimes think that na- 
 ture intended me for the church." 
 
 Three years had elapsed. On the Christmas eve of 1772, all 
 the play-going people of Wakefield were in a state of pleasant ex- 
 citement, at the promise made in bills posted over the town an- 
 nouncing the immediate appearance of the "Young Queen of 
 Columbines." All the young bachelors of the town were besie- 
 ging the box-office. In those days there were not only theatres in 
 provincial towns, but people really went to them. Amid the ap- 
 plicants, was a sprightly-looking articled clerk, who, having 
 achieved his object, had stopped for a moment at the stage-door to 
 read the programme of the forthcoming pantomime. While thus 
 engaged the Columbine Queen, the most fairy-looking of youthful 
 figures, brilliant as spring, and light as gossamer, sweet fifteen, 
 with a look of being a year or two more, tripped into the street, 
 on her way home from rehearsal. Eighty years ago the gallantry 
 of country towns, with respect to pretty actresses, was much like 
 that which characterizes German localities now. It was of a 
 rudely enthusiastic quality. Accordingly, the fairy-looking Co- 
 lumbine had hardly proceeded a dozen yards, when she had twice 
 as many offers made her of arms, whereon to find support over 
 the slippery pavement. It was an old-fashioned winter in Wake- 
 field, and Columbine's suitors had as many falls in the course of 
 their assiduities, as though they had been so many " Lovers" in 
 
324 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 the pantomime, and the wand of Harlequin was tripping them up 
 as thej skipped along. Columbine got skilfully rid of them all in 
 time, except one ; and he became at last so unwelcomely intrusive, 
 that the articled clerk, who was the very champion of distressed 
 damsels, and had been a watcher of what was going on, went up 
 to the young lady, took her arm in his, without any ceremony, and 
 bade her persecutor proceed any further, at his peril. The gen- 
 tleman took the hint, and left knight and lady to continue their 
 way unmolested. They no sooner saw themselves alone, when, 
 looking into each other's faces, they laughed a merry laugh of rec- 
 ognition, and it would be difficult to say which was the merrier — 
 Miss Farren or Mr. Burroughs, the young actress and the incip- 
 ient lawyer. 
 
 "When boxing-night came, there was a crowded house, and 
 Lizzy created a furore. Like Carlotta Grisi, she could sing as 
 well as dance, and there was a bright intellect, to boot, pervading 
 all she did. On the night in question, she sang between the acts ; 
 and young Burroughs, ever watchful, especially marked the effect 
 of her singing upon a very ecstatic amateur who was seated next 
 to him. " What a treasure," said the amateur, " would this girl 
 be in Liverpool !" " Well," remarked Burroughs, u I am ready 
 to accept an engagement for her. State your terms. Thirty 
 shillings a- week, I presume, will not quite exhaust your treasury." 
 " I will certainly," said the stranger, " tell our manager, Younger, 
 of the prize which is to be acquired so cheaply ; and the affair 
 need not be delayed ; for Younger is at the Swan, and will be 
 down here to-night, to see the pantomime." 
 
 In five minutes, Burroughs was sitting face-to-face with Younger 
 at the inn, urging him to go at once, not to see Columbine dance, 
 but to hear her sing. " I wonder," said the manager, " if your 
 young friend is the child of the Cork surgeon who married the 
 daughter of Wright, the Liverpool brewer. If so, she's clever ; 
 besides, why " 
 
 "Why she'll make your fortune," said the lawyer's clerk. 
 " She is the grand-daughter of your Liverpool brewer, sings like 
 a nightingale, and is worth five pounds a week to you at least. 
 Come and hear her." 
 
 Younger walked leisurely down, as if he was in no particular 
 
STAGE LADIES AND THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY. olio 
 
 want of talent ; but he was so pleased with what he did hear that 
 when the songstress came off the stage, Burroughs went round 
 and exultingly announced that he had procured an engagement 
 for her at Liverpool, at two pounds ten per week ; and to find her 
 own satin shoes and silk stockings. In prospect of such a Potosi, 
 the Columbine danced that night as boundingly as if Dan Mercury 
 had lent her the very pinions from his heels. 
 
 " Mr. Burroughs," said Lizzy, as he was escorting her and her 
 mother home, " this is the second Christmas you have made happy 
 for us. I hope you may live to be Lord Chief Justice." 
 
 " Thank you, Lizzy, that is about as likely as that Liverpool 
 will make of the Wakefield Columbine a countess." 
 
 A few years had again passed away since the Christmas week 
 which succeeded that spent at Wakefield, and which saw Lizzy 
 Farren the only Bosetta which Liverpool cared to listen to, and it 
 was now the same joyous season, but the locality was Chester. 
 
 There was a custom then prevailing among actors, which exists 
 nowhere now, except in some of the small towns in Germany. 
 Thus, not very long ago, at Ischl, in Austria, I was surprised to 
 see a very pretty actress enter my own room at the inn, and 
 putting a play-bill into my hand, solicit my presence at her bene- 
 fit. This was a common practice in the north of England till 
 Tate Wilkinson put an end to it, as derogatory to the profession. 
 The custom, however, had not been checked at the time and in 
 the locality to which I have alluded. On the Christmas eve of 
 the period in question, Lizzy Farren was herself engaged in dis- 
 tributing her bills, and asking patronage for her benefit, which 
 was to take place on the following Twelfth Night. As appropri- 
 ate to the occasion she had chosen Shakespeare's comedy of that 
 name, and was to play Viola, a part for which Younger, who 
 loved her heartily, had given her especial instruction. 
 
 Miss Farren had not been very successful in her " touting." She 
 had been unlucky in the two families at whose houses she had 
 ventured to knock. The first was that of an ex-proprietor of a 
 religious periodical, who had a horror of the stage, but who had 
 a so much greater horror of Romanism, that, like the Scottish 
 clergy of the time, he would have gone every night to the play 
 
326 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 during Passion week, only to show his abhorrence of popery. 
 This pious scoundrel had grown rich by swindling his editors and 
 supporting any question which paid best. His household he kept 
 for years, by inserting advertisements in Ins journal for which 
 he was paid in kind. He was a slimy, sneaking, mendacious 
 knave, who would have advocated atheism if he" could have pro- 
 cured a dozen additional subscribers by it. His lady was the 
 quintessence of vulgarity and malignity. She wore diamonds on 
 her wig, venom in her heart, and very-much-abused English at 
 the end of her tongue. 
 
 Poor Lizzy, rebuffed here, rang at the garden-gate of Mrs. 
 Penury Beaugawg. She was a lady of sentiment who drank, a 
 lady of simplicity who rouged, a lady of affected honesty who 
 lived beyond her income, and toadied or bullied her relations into 
 paying her debts. Mrs. Penury Beaugawg would have gracious- 
 ly accepted orders for a private box ; but a patronage which cost 
 her anything, was a vulgarity which her gentle and generous spirit 
 could not comprehend. 
 
 Lizzy was standing dispirited in the road at the front of the 
 house, when a horseman rode slowly up ; and Lizzy, not at all 
 abashed at practising an old but not agreeable custom, raised a 
 bill to his hand as he came close to her, and solicited half-a-crown, 
 the regular adinission-price to the boxes. 
 
 " Lizzy !" cried the horseman, " you shall have such a house at 
 Chester, as the old town has not seen since the night Garrick was 
 here, and played Richard and Lord Chalkstone." 
 
 The equestrian was Mr. Burroughs, then in training for 
 the bar, and as willing to help Miss Farren now as he was 
 to aid her and her bowl of milk across the market-place at 
 Salisbury. The incipient barrister kept his word. The 
 Chester theatre was crammed to the ceiling; and, as Lizzy 
 said, Mr. Burroughs was her Christmas angel, the thought of 
 whom was always associated in her mind with plumbs, currants, 
 holly 
 
 " And mistletoe," said the budding counsellor, with a look at 
 which both laughed merrily and honestly. 
 
 On the Christmas eve of 1776, Miss Farren was seated in 
 Column's parlor in London, looking at him while he read two 
 
STAGE LADIES AND THE ROMANCE OP HISTORY. 827 
 
 letters of introduction; one from Burroughs, the other from 
 Younger ; and both in high praise of the young bearer, for whom 
 they were especially written. My limits will only allow me to 
 say that Lizzy was engaged for the next summer-season at the 
 Haymarket, where she appeared on June 9, 1777, in " She Stoops 
 to Conquer." She was Miss Hardcastle, and Edwin made his 
 first appearance in London with her, in the same piece. Colman 
 would have brought out Henderson too, if he could have managed 
 it. That dignified gentleman, however, insisted on reserving Ins 
 debut for Shylock, on the 11th of the same month. And what a 
 joyous season did Lizzy make of it for our then youthful grand- 
 fathers. How they admired her double talent in Miss Hardcas- 
 tle I How ecstatic were they with her Maria, in the " Citizen !" 
 How ravishedly did they listen to her Rosetta! How they 
 laughed at her Miss Tittup, in " Bon Ton !" and how they ex- 
 tolled her playfulness and dignity as Rosina, of which she was 
 the original representative, in the " Barber of Seville !" It may 
 be remarked that Colman omitted the most comic scene in the 
 piece, that wherein the Count is disguised as a drunken trooper 
 — as injurious to morality! 
 
 When, in the following year, she played Lady Townley, she 
 was declared the first, and she was then almost the youngest of 
 living actresses. And when she joined the Drury Lane company 
 in the succeeding season, the principal parts were divided between 
 herself, Miss Walpole, Miss P. Hopkins, and Perdita Eobinson. 
 Not one of this body was then quite twenty years of age ! Is 
 not this a case wherein to exclaim — 
 
 " mihi prseteritos referat si Jupiter annos V 
 
 Just twenty years did she adorn our stage ; ultimately taking 
 leave of it at Drury Lane, in April, 1797, in the character of 
 Lady Teazle. Before that time, however, she had been promi- 
 nent in the Christmas private plays at the Duke of Richmond's, 
 in which the Earl of Derby, Lord Henry Fitzgerald, and the 
 Honorable Mrs. Dormer acted with her ; and that rising barrister, 
 Mr. Burroughs, looking constantly at the judicial bench as his 
 own proper stage, was among the most admiring of the audience. 
 It was there that was formed that attachment which ultimately 
 
328 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 made of her, a month after she had retired from the stage, Countess 
 of Derby, and subsequently mother of a future countess, who still 
 wears her coronet. 
 
 Not long after this period, and following on her presentation 
 at Court, where she was received with marked kindly conde- 
 scension by Queen Charlotte, the countess was walking in the 
 marriage procession of the Princess Royal and the Duke of 
 Wurtemberg ; her foot caught in the carpeting, and she would have 
 fallen to the ground, but for the ready arms, once more extended 
 to support her, of Mr. Burroughs, now an eminent man indeed. 
 
 Many years had been added to the roll of time, when a carriage, 
 containing a lady was on its way to Windsor. It suddenly came 
 to a stop, by the breaking of an axle-tree. In the midst of the 
 distress which ensued to the occupier, a second carriage ap- 
 proached, bearing a goodnatured-looking gentleman, who at once 
 offered his services. The lady, recognising an old friend, accept- 
 ed the offer with alacrity. As the two drove off together in 
 the gentleman's carriage toward Windsor, the owner of it re- 
 marked that he had almost expected to find her in distress on 
 the road ; for it was Christmas Eve, and he had been thinking 
 of old times. 
 
 " How many years is it, my lady countess," said he, u since I 
 stood at my father's shop-door hi Salisbury, watching your perilous 
 passage over the market-place, with a bowl of milk ?" 
 
 " Not so long at all events," she answered with a smile, " but 
 that I recollect my poor father would have lost his breakfast, but 
 for your assistance." 
 
 " The time is not long for memory," replied the Judge, " nor is 
 Salisbury as far from Windsor as Dan from Beersheba ; yet how 
 wide the distance between the breakfast at the cage-door at Salis- 
 bury, and the Christmas dinner to which we are both proceeding, 
 in the palace of the king !" 
 
 " The earl is already there," added the countess, " and he will 
 be happier than the king himself to welcome the legal knight who 
 has done such willing service to the Lady of the Knight of the 
 Bath." 
 
 To those whose power and privilege it is to create such knights, 
 we will now direct our attention, and see how kings themselves 
 behaved in their character as knights. 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 
 
 THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 
 
 FROM THE NORMANS TO THE STUARTS. 
 
 " Un roi abstrait n'est ni pere, ni fils, ni frere, ni parent, ni chevalier, 
 ami. Qu'est il done ? JRoi, merae quand il dort." — Diderot. 
 
 If we judge some of our kings by the strict laws of chivalry, 
 we shall find that they were but sorry knights after all. They 
 may have been terrible in battle ; but they were ill-mannerly in 
 ladies' bower. 
 
 William the Conqueror, for instance, had none of the tender senti- 
 ment of chivalry ; in other words he showed little gentleness in his 
 bearing toward women. It is said by Ingerius, that after Matilda of 
 Flanders had refused his hand, on the ground that she would not have 
 a bastard for a husband, he waylaid her as she was returning from 
 mass in one of the streets of Bruges, dragged her out from among 
 her ladies, pommelled her brutally, and finally rolled her in the 
 mud. A little family difference arose in consequence ; but as it 
 was less bitter than family quarrels usually are, a reconciliation 
 took place, and Matilda gave her hand to the knight who had so 
 terribly bruised her with his arm. She loved him, she said, be- 
 cause he had shown more than the courage of common knights, by 
 daring to beat her within sight of her father's own palace. But 
 all's well that ends well ; they were not only a handsome but a 
 happy couple, and Matilda was head of the household at the Con- 
 queror's hearth. The general's wife was there the general. 
 
 How William bore himself in fight is too well known to need 
 recapitulating here. He probably never knew fear but once, and 
 that was at the sounds of a tumult in the street, which reached his 
 ears as he was being crowned. Then, indeed, "'tis true this god 
 
330 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 did shake," for the first and only time. His successor, who was 
 knighted by Archbishop Lanfranc, was in the field as good a 
 knight as he, and generous to an adversary, although he was never 
 so to any mortal besides. But Rufus was nothing of a knight in 
 his bearing toward ladies. His taste with regard to the fair sex 
 was of the worst sort ; and the court of this royal and reprobate 
 bachelor was a reproach at once to kingship and knighthood, to 
 Christianity and civilization. He had been accused, or rather the 
 knights of his time and country, with having introduced into Eng- 
 land the practice of a crime of which the real introducer, according 
 to others, was that Prince William who was drowned so fortunately 
 for England, on the sea between Calais and Dover. The chival- 
 rous magnanimity of Rufus is exemplified in the circumstance of his 
 having, in disguise, attacked a cavalier, from whom he received so 
 sound a beating, that he was at length compelled to avow himself 
 in order to induce his conqueror to spare his life. The terrified 
 victor made an apology, in the very spirit of the French knight 
 of the Holy Ghost to a dying cavalier of the Golden Spur, whom 
 he had mortally wounded in mistake : " I beg a thousand par- 
 dons," said the polite Frenchman, " but I really took you for some- 
 body else." So William's vanquisher began to excuse himself for 
 having nearly battered the king's skull to a jelly, with his battle- 
 axe, on the ground of his having been unacquainted with his rank. 
 " Never heed the matter," said the king, " you are a good fellow, 
 and shall, henceforth, be a follower of mine." Many similar in- 
 stances might be cited. Further, Rufus was highly popular with 
 all men-at-arms ; the knights reverenced him as the very flower 
 of chivalry, and I am glad that the opprobrium of having slain 
 him in the New Forest no longer attaches itself to a knight, al- 
 though I am sorry an attempt has been made to fix it upon the 
 church. No one now believes that Sir Walter Tyrrel was the 
 author of the crime, and chivalry is acquitted of the charge against 
 one of its members of having slain the flaxen-haired but rubicund- 
 nosed king. 
 
 Henry Beauclerc was more of a scholar than a knight, without, 
 however, being so very much of the first. The English-born 
 prince was far less chivalrous of spirit than his former brother 
 Robert ; that is, if not less brave, he was less generous, especially 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 331 
 
 lo a foe. When he was besieged on St. Michael's Mount by 
 Robert, and reduced to such straits, that he was near dying of thirst, 
 Robert supplied him with water ; an act for which Rufus called 
 the doer of it a fool ; but as poor Robert nobly remarked, the 
 quarrel between him and their brother was not of such importance 
 that he should be made to perish of thirst. " We may have oc- 
 casion," said he, " for a brother hereafter ; but where shall we find 
 one, if we now destroy this ?" Henry would hardly have imi- 
 tated conduct so chivalrously generous. He was more knightly 
 in love, and it is recorded to his honor, that he married Matilda, 
 daughter of Malcolm, King of Scotland, for pure love, and not for 
 " filthy lucre," preferring to have her without a marriage portion, 
 than to wait till one could be provided for her. This would have 
 been praiseworthy enough had Henry not been, subsequently, like 
 many other persons who marry in haste — for ever looking for 
 pecuniary assistance from other resources than his own. He 
 especially lacked too what was enjoined on every knight, a love 
 of truth. His own promises were violated with alacrity, when 
 the violation brought profit. He wanted, too, the common virtue 
 of fidelity, which men of knightly rank were supposed to possess 
 above all others. The fact that fifteen illegitimate children sur- 
 vived him, speaks little for his respect for either of his consorts, 
 Matilda of Scotland, or Adelicia of Louvain. Generally speak- 
 ing, however, the character of the royal scholar may be described 
 in any terms, according to the view in which it is taken. With 
 some historians, he is all virtue, with others all vice. 
 
 Stephen had more of the knightly character about him. He 
 was an accomplished swordsman, and loved the sound of battle as 
 became the spirit of the times, which considered the king as the 
 first knight in the land. He had as little regard as Henry for a 
 sense of justice when disposed to seize upon that to which he had 
 no right, but he was incontestably brave, as he was indefensibly 
 rash. Stephen received the spurs of knighthood from his uncle, 
 Henry I., previous to the battle of Tinchebray ; and in that fray 
 he so bore himself as to show that he was worthy of the honor 
 that had been conferred upon him. But Stephen was as faithless 
 to his marriage vow as many other belted knights, and Matilda of 
 Boulogne had to mourn over the faithlessness of one who had 
 
382 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 sworn to be faithful. It is said, too, of this king that he always 
 went into battle terribly arrayed. This was in the spirit of those 
 birds that raise their crests to affright their enemies. 
 
 Henry II., like his brother kings, we can only consider in his 
 character of knight. In this character he is almost unexception- 
 able, which is more than can be said of him generally as king or 
 as man. He was brave and generous, two chief characteristics 
 of knighthood. He it was who abolished that burdensome and 
 unprofitable feudal military service, which brought the barons or 
 military tenants into the field, for forty days. The camp conse- 
 quently abounded in unskilful and disorderly men. Henry ac- 
 cordingly introduced the practice of commuting their military ser- 
 vice for money, by levying scutages from his baronies and knights- 
 fees, or so much for every shield or bearer of it that should attend 
 but had purchased exemption. 
 
 Henry II., not only loved knightly practice himself, but he 
 loved to see his sons exercising knight-errantry, and wandering 
 about in disguise from court to court, displaying their prowess in 
 tournaments, and carrying off prizes from all adversaries. To the 
 stories of these adventures of his by no means exemplary sons he 
 would listen with delight. He was himself, however, a sire who 
 set but indifferent example to his children ; and his two sons, of 
 whom fair Rosamond was the mother, were brought up and edu- 
 cated with his children by Eleanor. He received much knightly 
 service and true affection from his illegitimate children. TVilliain, 
 Earl of Salisbury, is known by his chivalric surname of " Long- 
 sword," but Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincoln, the second son of Henry 
 and Rosamond, was not the less a knight for being a bishop before 
 he was twenty. It was this prelate who, at the head of an armed 
 force put down the first great northern insurrection. He was on 
 his triumphant way back, at the head of one hundred and forty 
 knights, when he was met by his royal sire, w T ho embraced him 
 warmly, exclaiming the while, " Thou alone art my legitimate 
 son, the rest are all bastards." That he himself could endure 
 much was evinced when he submitted to correction at the shrine 
 of Becket. He was flagellated by the prelates, abbots, bishop, and 
 eighty monks ; and the first refreshment he took after the long pen- 
 ance, was some water in which a portion of Becket's blood was min- 
 
THE KINGS OP ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 333 
 
 gled. His claim to be considered chivalrous never suffered, in the 
 mind of the church at least, because of this humiliating submission. 
 
 But in the dissensions which led to this humiliation, the church 
 incurred perhaps more disgrace than the king. Nothing could 
 possibly be more disgraceful than the conduct of the pope and 
 the diplomacy of the Roman government throughout the continua- 
 tion of the quarrel between Becket and the king. Double-dealing, 
 atrocious deceit, and an unblushing disregard for truth, marked 
 every act of him who was looked upon as the spiritual head of 
 Christendom. Comparing Becket with the king, it is impossible to 
 avoid coming to the conclusion that, in many of the requirements 
 of knighthood, he was superior to the sovereign. His death, that is 
 the way in which he met it, was sublime. Throughout the great 
 quarrel, of which that death was a consequence, Becket never, 
 like Henry, in his moments of defeat and discouragement, gave 
 way to such impotent manifestations of rage as were shown by his 
 royal antagonist. The latter forgot the dignity, not only of knight, 
 but of manhood, when he was seen casting his cap violently to the 
 earth, flinging away his belt, tearing his clothes from his body, and 
 dragging the silk coverlet from his bed, on which, in presence of 
 his captains, he rolled himself like a maniac, grasping the mattress 
 in his mouth, and gnawing the wool and the horsehair which he 
 drew out with his teeth. 
 
 Richard I. has a brilliant reputation as a knight, and if valor 
 were the only virtue required, he would not be undeserving of the 
 pre-eminence which is claimed for him. But this was his sole 
 virtue. Of the other qualifications for, or qualities of chivalry, 
 he knew nothing, or little cared for them. He was faithless in 
 love ; regardless of his pledged word ; cruel, extravagant, dishon- 
 est ; and not even always brave, when away from the clamor and 
 excitements of war. But John lacked the one rough quality of 
 Richard, and was not even brave — that is to say, he was not distin- 
 guishedly brave. When he stole away Isabella of Angouleme from 
 her first lover, Sir Hugh de Lusignan, it was not done with the 
 dashing gallantry of Young Lochinvar. John, in fact, was a shabby 
 and recreant knight ; and when stout Sir Hugh challenged him to 
 single combat, because of his crime of abduction, John offered to 
 accept it by deputy, and to fight also by deputy. Sir Hugh knew 
 
334 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 the craven prince thoroughly, and truly enough remarked that the 
 deputy would be a mere assassin, and he would have nothing to 
 do with either principal or representative. John kept the lady ; 
 and, if there be any persons curious to see how niggardly he kept 
 her, they are referred to the duly published chronicles wherein 
 there are full details. 
 
 Henry III. was the most pacifically-minded of the kings of 
 England who had hitherto reigned. He had little of the knight 
 about him, except the courtesy, and he could occasionally forget 
 even that. Devotion to the fair, too, may fairly be reckoned 
 among his knightly qualities ; but he lacked the crowning virtue 
 of fidelity. He wooed many, was rejected by several, and jilted 
 the few who believed in him. He exhibited, it must be allowed, 
 a chivalrous generosity in at last marrying Eleanor of Castile, 
 without dowry ; but he was not the more true to her on that ac- 
 count. Mild as he was by nature, he was the especial favorite 
 of the most warlike of the orders of knighthood — the Templars. 
 They mourned for him when dead, as though he had been the 
 very flower of chivalry, and the most approved master of their 
 order. They buried him, too, with a pomp which must have 
 drawn largely even on their well-lined purses, and the Knights 
 of the Temple deposited the king in the tomb of the most pious 
 of monarchs — Edward the Confessor. It is difficult to say why 
 the Templars had such love for the weak king, for he was not an 
 encourager of knightly associations and observations. At the same 
 time he may be said to have lowered the estimation in which 
 knighthood had been held, by making the honor itself cheap, and 
 sometimes even less than that — unwelcome. Henry III. issued 
 a writ in the twenty-ninth year of his reign, summoning tenants 
 in chief to come and receive knighthood at his hands : and tenants 
 of mesne lords to be knighted by whomsoever they pleased. It 
 may be believed that this last permission was abused, for soon 
 after this period "it became an established principle of our law 
 that no subject can confer knighthood except by the king's author- 
 ity." So says Hallam. The mx>st extraordinary law or custom 
 of this reign with respect to chivalry was, that any man who pos- 
 sessed an annual income of fifteen pounds derived from land, was 
 to be compelled to receive the honor of knighthood. 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 335 
 
 The successor of Henry, Edward I., was of a far more knightly 
 quality. Faithful in love, intrepid in battle, generous to the needy, 
 and courteous to all — except when his temper was crossed — he 
 may pass muster as a very respectable knight. He was active 
 and strong, and, with one hand on the back of his steed, could 
 vault, at a single bound, into the saddle. Few men cared less for 
 finery. He was even reproved on one occasion by a bishop, for 
 being dressed beneath his dignity of either king or knight. " Fa- 
 ther," said Edward, " what could I do more in royal robes than 
 in this plain gaberdine ?" 
 
 Edward would have acted little in the spirit of a true knight 
 if he had really acted toward the Bards, according to the cruel 
 fashion recorded in history. I am inclined to believe with Da- 
 vies, in his " Mythology of the Druids," that this king has been 
 calumniated in this respect. " There is not the name," says Da- 
 vies, " of a single bard upon record who suffered either by his 
 hand or by his orders. His real act was the removal of that pat- 
 ronage, under which the bards had, hitherto, cherished the heathen- 
 ish superstition of their ancestors, to the disgrace of our native 
 princes." This king showed a feeling common with many knights, 
 that however indifferently they might look living, in rusty armor 
 or faded mantle, they should wear a decent and comely covering 
 when dead. Thus he ordered that every year his tomb should 
 be opened, and his remains covered with a new cere-cloth or pall. 
 It was a pride akin to that of Mrs. Oldfield's, in the days of our 
 grandmothers, who was buried in a Brussels lace head-dress, a 
 Holland shift with tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, and 
 a pair of new kid gloves. The same weakness of nature marked 
 both the tragedy-queen and the actual king ; and it marks many 
 more than they. There was more humility, however, in the sec- 
 ond Duke Richard of Normandy, who was far more chivalrous 
 than Edward I., and who ordered his body to be buried at the 
 church-door, where passengers might tread upon it, and the spouts 
 from the roof discharge their water upon it. 
 
 It was in the religious spirit of chivalry that Edward I. expelled 
 the Jews. One curious result is said to have followed. Report 
 alleges that many of the Jewish families fled into Scotland, where 
 
836 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 " they have propagated ever since in great numbers ; witness the 
 aversion this nation has above others to hog's flesh." 
 
 Of the unfortunate Edward II., it may be said that he was an 
 indifferent knight, who gave the honors of chivalry to very indif- 
 ferent persons, and committed great outrages on knightly orders 
 themselves. In the annals of knighthood he is remembered as the 
 monarch who abolished the Order of Knights Templars in Eng- 
 land. He treated the luckless chevaliers with far more generosity 
 than Henry VIII. observed toward the ejected monks and ab- 
 bots. He allowed two shillings per day to the deprived master 
 of the Temple, and fourpenee each daily to the other knights for 
 their support, out of their former confiscated property. Edward 
 himself loved carousing and hunting, more than any other pastime. 
 There were other pleasures, indeed, in which he greatly delighted, 
 and these are well catalogued in one of Gaveston's speeches in 
 Marlowe's tragedy, called by this king's name : — 
 
 " I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits, 
 Musicians, that with to aching of a string, 
 May draw the pliant king which way I please ; 
 Music and poetry are his delight, 
 Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night, 
 Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing slaves ; 
 And in the day, when he shall walk abroad, 
 Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad ; 
 My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, 
 Shall with their goats' feet dance the antic lay. 
 Sometimes a lovely boy, in Dian's shape, 
 With hair that gilds the water as it glides 
 Coronets of pearl about his naked arms, 
 And in his sportive hands an olive-tree, 
 To hide those parts which men delight te see, 
 Shall bathe him in a spring ; and there hard by 
 One, like Action, peeping through the grove, 
 Shall by the angry goddess be transformed, 
 And running in the likeness of a hart, 
 By yelping hounds pulled down, shall seem to die ; 
 Such things as these best please his majesty." 
 
 How dearly he paid for indulgence in such pleasures, and how 
 meekly he accepted his fierce destiny or retribution, need not be 
 detailed here. 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 337 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the character of Edward II. him- 
 self, his chivalry wrought little good for the realm. The crown of 
 England during his reign was weaker ; and as the knight-histo- 
 rian, Sir J. Davies, remarks in his History of Ireland, " suffered 
 more dishonor in both kingdoms than at any time since the Norman 
 Conquest." There were few such honest knights, too, in that 
 reio-n, as in that of the third Edward, when Sir Thomas Rookes- 
 by, an eminent law-knight and judge, was wont to say that he 
 •' would eat in wooden dishes, but would pay gold and silver for 
 his meat." In this speech a blow was dealt at the extravagant 
 people who in order " to eat off plate," made no scruple of cheat- 
 ing their butcher. 
 
 In Edward III. we have a king who is more closely connected 
 with knightly associations in our memory than any other sovereign 
 of England. He it was who, by reviving or reconstructing the 
 ancient order, founded by Richard L, of " The Blue Thong" — a 
 leather knee-band, worn by certain of the English crusaders — 
 formed that brilliant Order of the Garter, winch has been con- 
 ferred on so few who are deserving, and on so many whose 
 claims were not so great as their " pretensions." 
 
 How far gallantry to the Countess of Salisbury had to do with 
 the renewing of the Order of the Blue Thong, under the name of 
 the Garter, is still an unsettled rather than a disputed point. 
 Froissart's account is : " You have all heard how passionately 
 King Edward was smitten with the charms of the noble Lady 
 Katherine, Countess of Salisbury. Out of affection to the said 
 lady, and his desire to see her, he proclaimed a great feast, in 
 August, 1343. He commanded all his own lords and knights 
 should be there without fail, and he expressly ordered the Earl 
 of Salisbury to bring his lady, his wife, with as many young ladies 
 as she could collect to attend her. The Earl very cheerfully com- 
 plied with the king's request, for he thought no evil, and his good 
 lady dared not to say nay. She came, however, much against her 
 will, for she guessed the reason which made the king so earnest 
 for her attendance, but was afraid to discover it to her husband, 
 intending by her conduct to make the king change his opinion. . . 
 All the ladies and damsels who assisted at the first convocation of 
 the Order of the Garter came superbly dressed, excepting the 
 
 22 
 
338 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Countess of Salisbury, who attended the festival, dressed as plainly 
 as possible ; she did not wish the king to admire her, for she had no 
 intention to obey him in anything evil, that might tend to the dis- 
 honor of her dear lord." The repetition of the word evil here, has 
 probably nothing to do with the motto of the Garter, but I may 
 notice that when Froissart calls the above festival a convocation of 
 the order, he is in error, for, the first chapter of the Garter was 
 held at Windsor, on St. George's Day, 1344. At this chapter 
 Queen Philippa was present in the robes of the order ; for every 
 knight's lady in the olden time shared in the knightly honors of 
 her lord. 
 
 How Edward bore himself in tournament and battle we all 
 know. Both historians and poets have rejoiced to exhibit this 
 chivalrous monarch as a lover, and he is even more interesting as 
 a knight in love than as one in war, and moreover as the account 
 of him in the former character reveals some other incidents of 
 knightly life, I will borrow Froissart's historical picture of Edward 
 in a lady's bower, and contrast therewith the picture of the same 
 monarch in the same circumstances, as depicted by the hands of a 
 poet. It is only necessary to premise that the lady who was the 
 object of Edward's homage was Katherine de Granson, daughter 
 of a handsome, penniless knight, and a rich Wiltshire heiress 
 named Sibyl. " Katherine the fair," says Miss Strickland, " was 
 the only child of this couple, and was richly endowed with her 
 mother's wealth and her father's beauty. She bestowed both on 
 the brave Earl of Salisbury" — who, if he was ugly as he was val- 
 iant, must have been grateful for the gift of the beauty of William 
 de Granson. 
 
 When Edward wooed the countess, the earl was a prisoner in 
 France, and the lady's castle of Wark had just been relieved from 
 siege laid against it by an army of Scots. "The moment the 
 countess heard the king's approach she ordered all the gates to be 
 thrown open, and went out to meet him most richly dressed, inso- 
 much that no one could look at her, but with wonder and admira- 
 tion at her noble deportment and affability of behavior. When 
 she came near King Edward she made her obeisance to the ground, 
 and gave him thanks for coming to her assistance, and then con- 
 ducted him into the castle, to entertain and honor him, as she was 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 839 
 
 very capable of doing. Every one was delighted with her ; but 
 the king could not take his eyes from her ; so that a spark of fine 
 love struck upon his heart, which lasted for a long time, for he did 
 not believe that the whole world produced another such a lady, so 
 worthy of being beloved. Thus they entered the castle, hand in 
 hand. The countess led him first to the hall, and then to the best 
 chamber which was very richly furnished as belonging to so fine 
 a lady. King Edward kept his eyes so fixed upon the countess 
 that the gentle lady was quite abashed. After he had sufficiently 
 examined his apartment, he retired to a window, and leaning on it, 
 fell into a profound revery. 
 
 " The countess left him, to order dinner to be made ready, and 
 the table set, and the hall ornamented and set out ; likewise to 
 welcome the knights and lords who accompanied the king. When 
 she had given all the orders to her servants she thought needful, 
 she returned with a cheerful countenance to King Edward and 
 said : ' Dear sir, what are you musing on ? Such meditation is 
 not proper for you, saving your grace ! You ought rather to be 
 in high spirits, having freed England from her enemy without loss 
 of blood.' The king replied, ' Oh, dear lady, you must know 
 since I have been in this castle, some thoughts have oppressed 
 my mind that I was not before aware of, so that it behooves me to 
 reflect. Being uncertain what may be the event, I can not with- 
 draw my attention.' * Dear sir,' answered the lady, ' you ought 
 to be of good cheer, and feast with your friends to give them more 
 pleasure, and leave off pondering, for God has been very bountiful 
 to you in your undertakings, so that you are the most feared and 
 renowned prince in Christendom. If the king of Scotland have 
 vexed you by the mischief he hath done in your kingdom, you 
 will speedily be able to make reprisals in his dominions. There- 
 fore, come, if it please you, into the hall to your knights, for your 
 dinner will soon be served.' ' Oh, sweet lady,' said King Ed- 
 ward, ' there be other things which touch my heart and lie heavy 
 there, than what you talk of. For in good truth, your beauteous 
 mien, and the perfection of your face and behavior have wholly 
 overcome me, and so deeply impress my heart, that my happiness 
 wholly depends on meeting a return to my flame, which no denial 
 from you can ever extinguish.' * Oh, my dear lord,' replied the 
 
340 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 countess, ' do not amuse yourself by laughing at me with trying 
 to tempt me ; for I can not believe you are in earnest as to what 
 you have just said. Is it likely that so gallant and noble a prince, 
 as you are, would ever think of dishonoring either me or my hus- 
 band, a valiant knight, who has served you so faithfully, and who 
 now lies in a doleful prison on your account ? Certainly, sir, this 
 would not redound to your glory, nor would you be the better if 
 you could have your wayward will.' 
 
 " The virtuous lady then quitted the king, who was astonished 
 at her words. She went into the hall to hasten dinner ; afterward 
 she approached the king's chamber, attended by all the knights, 
 and said to him, ' My lord king, your knights are all waiting for 
 you, to wash their hands, for they, as well as yourself, have fasted 
 too long.' King Edward left his apartment, and came to the hall, 
 where, after he had washed his hands, he seated himself with his 
 knights at the dinner, as did the lady also ; but the king ate very 
 little, and was the whole time pensive, casting his eyes, whenever 
 he had the opportunity, on the countess. Such behavior sur- 
 prised his friends, for they were not accustomed to it, never having 
 seen the like before in the king. They supposed it was his chagrin 
 at the departure of the Scots without a battle. The king remained 
 at the castle the whole day, without knowing what to do with him- 
 self. Thus did he pass that day and a sleepless night, debating 
 the matter within his own heart. At daybreak he rose, drew out 
 Ms whole army, exercised his camp, and made ready to follow the 
 Scots. Upon taking leave of the countess he said, l My dear lady, 
 God preserve you safe till I return ; and I pray that you will 
 think well of what I have said, and have the goodness to give me 
 a different answer.' ' My gracious liege,' replied the countess, 
 ' God of his infinite goodness preserve you, and drive from your 
 noble heart such villanous thoughts, for I am, and ever shall be, 
 willing to serve you, but only in what is consistent with my honor 
 and with yours.' The king left her, quite astonished at her an- 
 swers." He was, in fact, a very villanous personage in these mat- 
 ters, and looked for as much submission from those ladies on whom 
 he cast his eyes, as the Czar Nicholas did from the loyal ladies 
 whom that " copper captain" delighted to favor. 
 
 An unknown poet, of the period between 1590 and 1600, in an 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 341 
 
 historical play entitled " Edward III." has reproduced this inci- 
 dent, and worked it up for the stage — with some touches winch 
 are probably warranted by facts, and which, for that reason alone, 
 render the passage worth transcribing. 
 
 Edivard (solus). She is grown more fairer far, since I came hither. 
 Her voice more silver ev'ry word than other, 
 Her wit more fluent ; what a strange discourse 
 Unfolded she of David and his Scots ! 
 Even thus, quoth she, he spoke ; and then spake broad 
 With, epithets and accent of the Scot ; 
 But somewhat better than the Scot could speak : 
 And then, quoth she, and answered then herself ; 
 For who could speak like her ? hut she herself 
 Breathes from the wall an angel note from heaven 
 Of sweet defiance to her barbarous foes — 
 When she could talk of peace, methinks her tongue 
 Commanded war to prison ; when of war, 
 It wakened Caesar from his Roman grave, 
 To hear war beautified by her discourse. 
 "Wisdom is foolishness, but in her tongue ; 
 Beauty is slander, but in her fair face; 
 There is no summer, but in her cheerful looks ; 
 Nor frosty winter, but in her disdain. 
 I can not blame the Scots that did besiege her,. 
 For she is all the treasure of our land ; 
 But call them cowards that they ran away, 
 Having so rich and fair a cause to stay. 
 
 # # # *= * # 
 
 Countess. Sorry am I to see my liege so sad ; 
 What may thy subject do to drive from thee 
 This gloomy consort, sullen Melancholy ? 
 
 Edward. Ah, Lady ! I am blunt and can not straw 
 The flowers of solace in a ground of shame. 
 Since I came hither, Countess, I am wronged. 
 
 Countess. Now, God forbid that any in my house 
 Should think my sov'reign wrong ! Thrice gentle king, 
 Acquaint me with your cause of discontent. 
 
 Edward. How near then shall I be to remedy ? 
 
 Countess. As near, my liege, as all my woman's power 
 Can pawn itself to buy thy remedy. 
 
 Edward. If thou speak'st true, then have I my redress. 
 Engage thy power to redeem my joys, 
 And I am joyful, Countess ; else I die. 
 
 Countess. I will, my liege. 
 
342 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Edward. Swear, Countess, that thou wilt. 
 
 Countess. By Heaven, I will ! 
 
 Edward. Then take thyself a little way aside, 
 And tell thyself a king doth dote on thee. 
 Say that within thy power it doth lie 
 To make him happy ; and that thou hast sworn 
 To give him all the joy within thy power. 
 Do this, and tell him, when I shall be happy. 
 
 Countess. All this is done, my thrice-dread sovereign. 
 That power of love that I have power to give 
 Thou hast, with all devout obedience. 
 Employ me how thou wilt, in proof thereof. 
 
 Edward. Thou hear'st me say that I do dote on thee. 
 
 Countess. If on my beauty, take it, if thou canst. 
 Though little, I do prize it ten times less ; 
 If on my virtue, take it, if thou canst ; 
 For virtue's store, by giving, doth augment. 
 Be it on what it will that I can give, 
 And thou canst take away, inherit it. 
 
 Edward. It is thy beauty that I would enjoy. 
 
 Countess. Oh ! were it painted, I would wipe it off, 
 And dispossess myself to give it thee. 
 But, sov'reign, it is soldered to my life. 
 Take one and both ; for, like an humble shadow, 
 It haunts the sunshine of my summer's life. 
 
 Edward. But thou mayst lend it me in sport withal. 
 
 Countess. As easy may my intellectual soul 
 Be lent away, and yet my body live, 
 As lend my body (palace to my soul) 
 Away from her, and yet retain my soul. 
 My body is her bower, her court, her abbey, 
 And she an angel, pure, divine, unspotted. 
 If I should lend her house, my lord, to thee, 
 I kill my poor soul, and my poor soul me. 
 
 Edward. Didst thou not swear to give me what I would ? 
 
 Countess. I did, my liege ; so what you would I could. 
 
 Edward. I wish no more of thee than thou mayst give. 
 Nor beg I do not, but I rather buy ; 
 That is thy love ; and for that love of thine, 
 In rich exchange I tender to thee mine. 
 
 Countess. But that your lips were sacred, my good lord, 
 You would profane the holy name of love. 
 That love you offer me, you can not give ; 
 For Caesar owes that tribute to his queen. 
 That love you beg of me I can not give ; 
 For Sarah owes that duty to her lord. 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 343 
 
 He that doth clip or counterfeit your stamp 
 
 Shall die, my lord ; and shall your sacred self 
 
 Commit high treason 'gainst the King of Heav'n, 
 
 To stamp his image in forbidden metal, 
 
 Forgetting your allegiance and your oath 1 
 
 In violating marriage' sacred law 
 
 You break a greater honor than yourself. 
 
 To be a king is of a younger house 
 
 Than to be married ; your progenitor, 
 
 Sole-reigning Adam on the universe, 
 
 By God was honored for a married man, 
 
 But not by Him anointed for a king. 
 
 It is a penalty to break your statutes, 
 
 Though not enacted with your highness' hand ; 
 
 How much more to infringe the holy act 
 
 Made by the mouth of God, sealed with his hand 1 
 
 I know my sovereign in my husband's love 
 
 Doth but to try the wife of Salisbury, 
 
 Whether she will hear a wanton's tale or no ; 
 
 Lest, being guilty therein, by my stay, 
 
 From that, not from my liege, I turn away. 
 
 The countess, naturally, has the best of the argument, and 
 shames the king. In this pleasant light is she presented by both 
 chronicler and poet, and the lady, chiefly to honor whom the Order 
 of the Garter was constructed upon the basis of the Order of the 
 Blue Thong, was worthy of all the distinctive homage that could 
 be rendered to her by knight or king. 
 
 Richard II., so fond of parade and pleasure, so refined and in- 
 tellectual, so affable at first, so despotic and absolute at last, till he 
 was superseded and then slain, is among the most melancholy of 
 knights and sovereigns. He was not heroic, for he was easily ele- 
 vated and easily depressed. He turned deadly pale on hearing, 
 in Ireland, of the landing of Henry Bolingbroke in England, and 
 that the Archbishop of Canterbury had preached in favor of the 
 usurper. He was eminently courageous, sang a roundelay as well 
 as any minstrel, and often made the roundelays he sung. He 
 looked little like a knight indeed when he traversed part of Wales 
 to Conway, disguised as a Franciscan friar ; or flying from castle 
 to castle, having sorry lodging and little food. It was in the dress 
 and cowl of a monk that the once chivalrous Richard surrendered 
 himself to his cousin. In the army of that cousin, sent to take 
 
344 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Richard and his few faithful knights and squires who refused to 
 detach his device from their coats, was " Sir Henry Percy" (the 
 Hotspur of Shakespeare), " whom they held to be the best knight 
 in England." 
 
 It was by persuasion of Hotspur's father that Richard left Con- 
 way for Flint, where he was made prisoner, and afterward con- 
 veyed to Chester, the English knights of the opposite faction be- 
 having to him with most unchivalric rudeness. The unsceptred 
 monarch was first taken to Pickering, one of the most beautiful 
 spots in England, defaced by scenes of the greatest crimes, of 
 which place knights and nobles were the masters. Thence he 
 passed on to Leeds and Knaresborough Castle, where the king's 
 chamber is still pointed out to visiters. Finally, he was carried 
 to " bloody Pomfret" — " fatal and ominous to noble peers." Never, 
 it is said, did man look less like a knight than the unhappy king, 
 when he appeared before the drawbridge of Pontefract Castle. 
 Majestic still he was in feature, but the majesty was depressed by 
 such profound melancholy, that few could look upon the weeping 
 king without themselves shedding tears. If the picture of him at 
 tliis juncture might be metrically given in outline, the following 
 sketch might feebly render it : — 
 
 Who enters now that gate, 
 With dignity upon his pallid brow ? 
 Who is the man that, bending to his fate, 
 Comes hither now ! 
 
 A man of wo he seems, 
 Whom Sadness deep hath long marked for her own. 
 Hath such a form as that indulged in dreams 
 
 Upon a throne ? 
 
 Have smiles e'er wreathed that face 1 
 Face now so stamped with every line that's sad ; 
 Was joy e'er known those quivering lips to grace, 
 That heart to glad ? 
 
 Who is this shadow's shade ? 
 This type of withered majesty ? this thing ? 
 Can it be true that knightly form decayed 
 Was once a king ? 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 845 
 
 Son of a noble sire, 
 And of his father's virtues too, the heir ; 
 Those eyes so dim once rivalled the sun's fire ; 
 None were more fair. 
 
 Gallant, and light of heart, 
 The rock-born eagle was less bold than he ; 
 Formed upon earth to play each graceful part 
 Enchantingly. 
 
 His joys were early crushed ; 
 His mind perverted by most ruthless men ; 
 Hope, like a short-lived rose, a moment blushed, 
 And withered then. 
 
 His virtues were his own ; 
 His vices forced upon him, against his will ; 
 His weaker faults were of his age alone — 
 That age of ill. 
 
 In him thou seest the truth, 
 How tyrannous and all-usurping night, 
 Heedless of means, will, acting without ruth, 
 Triumph o'er Right. 
 
 Nor is this lesson sad 
 Void of instruction to the wary sent. 
 Learn from it with thy portion to be glad, 
 Meek and content. 
 
 And be, where'er thy path, 
 Whate'er the trials life may to thee bring, 
 Grateful that Heaven has not, in its wrath, 
 Made thee a king ! 
 
 Of the chivalrous spirit of Henry IV. no one entertains a 
 doubt, and yet he once refused to accept a challenge. The chal- 
 lenger was the Duke of Orleans, who had been Henry's sworn 
 friend, accomplice in some of his deeds, and who, failing to realize 
 all the advantages he expected, urged Henry to meet him in the 
 marches of Guienne, with a hundred knights on each side. Henry 
 fenced with the challenge rather than with the challenger, but 
 when the latter called him rebel, usurper, and murderer, he gave 
 his former friend the lie, in no very gentle terms, as regarded the 
 
346 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 charge of being accessory to the death of Richard. The little 
 flower, the Forget-me-not, owes some of its popularity to Henry, 
 who, previous to his being king, and when in exile, chose it for 
 his symbol, wore it in gold on Ins collar, and added to it by way 
 of device, the words " Souvenez de moi." It is worthy of obser- 
 vation that, after Henry's death, his widow, Joanna of Navarre, 
 continued to be recognised as a lady of the Garter, receiving 
 presents from Henry V. as such, and being in attendance on high 
 festivals, in robes of the order, the gift of the new king. 
 
 That new king requires no advocacy as a knight. The simple 
 word " Agincourt" is sufficient. His wooing of Katherine of Va- 
 lois is also characteristic of the gallant, if not the amorous knight. 
 At the betrothal of the illustrious couple, Henry presented to the 
 lady Ins own favorite knight, Sir Louis de Bobsart, as her per- 
 sonal attendant, to watch for ever over her safety ; but this queen's 
 knight was simply the queen's keeper, and his chief mission was 
 to take care that the lady was not stolen from him, between the 
 day of betrothal and that of the royal nuptials. 
 
 Although the reign of Henry V. formed a period of glory for 
 knighthood, the victories obtained by the chivalrous combatants 
 were effected at such a cost, that toward the close of the reign, 
 there were not men enough in England qualified to competently 
 carry on its civil business. It was still worse under Henry VI. 
 When peace with France was negotiating, the Cardinal of "Win- 
 chester represented to the French government that, during a 
 struggle of a quarter of a century, there had been more men, of 
 both countries, slain in these wars, for the title and claim to the 
 crown of France, than there were then existing in the two nations. 
 It was shocking, the Cardinal said, to think of so much Christian 
 blood having been shed ; — and there were not very many Christian 
 knights left to cry " hear, hear," to such an assertion. 
 
 Least cavalier of any of the kings who had hitherto reigned 
 was Henry VI., but there was chivalry enough for two in the 
 heart of his admirable wife, the most heroic, perhaps, of English 
 queens, Margaret of Anjou. How unlike was the destiny of tliis 
 ill-matched pair to that of their successors Edward IV. and Ins 
 wife Elizabeth "Woodville ! This king assumed one privilege of 
 knighthood, by loving whom he pleased, and marrying whom he 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 347 
 
 loved. He was the first king of England who married with a 
 simple lady, that is, one not of princely blood. He did not 
 prosper much the more for it, for his reign was one of a rather 
 splendid misery, in which the luxurious king was faithful to no 
 one, neither to the friends who upheld his cause, nor to Mistress 
 Shore, who helped him to render his cause unworthy. Passing 
 over Edward V., we may notice that there was much more of the 
 knightly character in Richard HX, than in the fourth Edward. 
 Richard would be better appreciated if we judged him according 
 to the spirit of the times in which he was born, and not by the 
 standard of our own. A braver monarch never fronted an En- 
 glish force ; and if heavy crimes can justly be laid to his account, 
 it should not be forgotten, that amid the bloody struggles which 
 he had to maintain, from the day almost of his accession, he had 
 leisure to put in force more than one enactment by which English 
 people profit, down even to the present period. 
 
 I have elsewhere remarked that many of us originally take our 
 idea of Henry VII. from the dashing Richmond who opens the 
 fifth act of Richard III. in panoply and high spirits. None of 
 Shakespeare's characters make a more knight-like appearance 
 than he. The fact, nevertheless, is that Henry was anything but 
 chivalrous in mien or carriage. His mother was married, it was 
 said, when only nine years old ; and it is added that Henry was 
 born in the year following the marriage. It is certain that the 
 lady was not in her teens, and to this circumstance, Turner is in- 
 clined to attribute the feebleness of Henry's constitution. 
 
 If he could not so well defend himself by the sword as poets 
 and Tudor historians have declared he could, he at least knew 
 how to do so by the strong arm of the law. It was in his reign 
 that benefit of clergy was taken from lay persons murdering their 
 lord, master, or sovereign immediate. 
 
 It is as certain that, in some parts of the island at least, the 
 chivalry of Richard, who was never nearly so black as he has 
 been painted, was more appreciated than the cautiousness of his 
 successful rival. In the northern counties, says Bacon, "the 
 memory of King Richard was so strong, that it lay like lees in 
 the bottom of men's hearts, and if the vessel was but stirred, it 
 would come up." 
 
348 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 The gallant sentiment of chivalry was really strongly impressed 
 on the popular mind at this period. I may cite as an instance, 
 that not only was Perkin Warbeck, who may be called an adven- 
 turous knight who has not had due justice rendered to him, 
 familiarly spoken of by the name of " the White Rose ;" but that 
 if we may believe Bacon, the name was continued in common 
 speech to his wife, in compliment to her true beauty. 
 
 Henry has been much censured for a vice from which all knights 
 were bound, like friars, to be free. But there were chevaliers in 
 his reign who were as fond of money as he. Sir William Stanley 
 was one of them. At the period of his execution, there was found 
 in his castle of Holt, a more than modest temporary provision for 
 a poor knight. In ready money alone, there were forty thousand 
 marks — to say nothing of plate, jewelry, household furniture, and 
 live stock, all in abundance, and of the first quality. " And for 
 his revenue in land and fee, it was three thousand pounds sterling 
 a year of old rent, great matter in those times. The great spoil 
 of Bosworth field came almost wholly into this man's hands, to his 
 infinite enriching." 
 
 Bacon classes Henry VII., Louis XI., and Ferdinand of Ara- 
 gon, as the three Magi of kings of the age in which they lived. 
 It is a happy classification. Ferdinand, however, had more of the 
 knight in him than his royal cousins, and not less of the statesman. 
 He it was who first invented the resident embassador at foreign 
 courts. 
 
 In chivalric bearing, Henry VIII., when young, was perhaps 
 never equalled, and certainly never surpassed. He was the most 
 courteous of knights, and the most gallant of gentlemen. As long 
 as he had Cardinal Wolsey at his side to guide and control him, 
 he maintained this character unimpaired ; and it was not till this 
 old Mentor died, that Henry lost his reputation as a Christian 
 knight and gentleman. 
 
 By a decree of the 24th of this king's reign, no person below 
 the degree of a knight could wear a collar of SS. The judges 
 wear such collars because they are, or rank with, knights. That 
 a decree was issued to this effect would seem to imply that previous 
 to the period named, individuals below the knightly degree might 
 wear the collar in question. Ifcdward IV., therefore, when he 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 349 
 
 conferred the collar on the Tanner of Tarnworth, was not guilty 
 of any anomaly. On the contrary, he evidently knew what he 
 was about, by the remark — 
 
 " So here I make thee the best Esqnire 
 That is in the North Countrie." 
 
 In Edward's time then, the collar niay have constituted the dif- 
 ference between squire and knight. But it was not the only one. 
 If there was a difference at their necks, there was also a distinc- 
 tion at their heels. The knight always wore golden spurs : he was 
 the Eques Auratus. The squire could wear spurs of no more 
 costly metal than silver, and " White-spurs," accordingly, was the 
 generic term for an esquire. It was probably in allusion to this 
 that the country squire mentioned by Jonson, displayed his silver 
 spurs among his side-board plate. To return to Henry VIII. ; 
 let me add that he exhibited something of what was considered a 
 knightly attribute, compassion for the lowly, when he suggested 
 that due sleeping-time should be allowed to laborers during the 
 summer. 
 
 Edward VI. was simply a youth of much promise. His father 
 was unwilling to create him a knight before he knew how to wield 
 arms ; and if he gained this knowledge early, he was never called 
 to put it in practice. There was more of the chivalrous character 
 in his over-abused half-sister, Mary, and also in Elizabeth ; but 
 then queens can not of course be considered as knights : Elizabeth, 
 however, had much of the spirit, and she was surrounded by 
 knightly men and served with a knightly devotion. There was, 
 I may observe, one species of knights in her time, who were known 
 as " knights of the road." The 39th of Elizabeth, especially and 
 curiously points to them in an act to relieve the hundred of Beyn- 
 hurst from the statute of Hue and Cry (where there was no vol- 
 untary default) on account of the penalties to which that hundred 
 was subject from the numerous robberies committed in Maidenhead 
 Thicket. Mavor, in his account of Berkshire, says that "The 
 vicar of Henley who served the cure of Maidenhead, was allowed 
 about the same time an advance of salary as some compensation 
 for the .danger of passing the thicket." The vicar, like the knights 
 of the road, at least, had purer air than the clergy and chivalry who 
 
350 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 kept house in the capital. " In London," says Euphues, " are all 
 things (as the fame goeth) that may either please the sight, or 
 dislike the smell ; either fill the eye with delight, or fill the nose 
 with infection." 
 
 Eefreshment under such circumstances was doubly needed; 
 and the popular gratitude was due to that most serviceable of 
 knights, Sir Thomas Gresham, who introduced the orange as an 
 article of trade, and who was consequently painted by Antonio 
 More with an orange in his hand. The old Utrecht artist just 
 named, was knighted by Charles V. who paid him poorly — some 
 six hundred ducats for three pictures, but added knighthood, which 
 cost the emperor nothing, and was esteemed of great value by the 
 painter. 
 
 One would imagine that under Mary and Elizabeth, knighthood 
 had become extinguished, were we to judge by an anonymous 
 volume which was published in Mary's reign, and republished in 
 that of Elizabeth. The great names of that period are proof to 
 the contrary, but there may have been exceptions. Let us then 
 look into the volume of this unknown writer who bewails the 
 degeneracy of his times, and lays down what he entitles the 
 " Institution of a Gentleman." 
 
"THE INSTITUTION OF A GENTLEMAN." 351 
 
 " THE INSTITUTION OF A GENTLEMAN." 
 
 " Your countenance, though it be glossed with knighthood, looks so bor- 
 rowingly, that the best words you give me are as dreadful as ' stand and 
 deliver.' " — The Asparagus Garden. 
 
 The unknown author of the "Institution of a Gentleman," 
 dedicates his able treatise to " Lorde Fitzwater, sonne and heire 
 to the Duke of Sussex." In his dedicatory epistle he does not so 
 much mourn over a general decay of manners, as over the lament- 
 able fact, that the lowly-born are rising to gentility, while nobility 
 and knighthood are going to decay. These he beseeches " to build 
 gentry up again, which is, for truth sore decayed, and fallen to 
 great ruin, whereby such great corruption of manners hath taken 
 place, that almost the name of gentleman is quenched, and handi- 
 craftsmen have obtained the title of honor, though (indeed) of 
 themselves they can challenge no greater worthiness than the 
 spade brought unto their late fathers." 
 
 The writer is troubled with the same matter in his introductory 
 chapter. This chapter shows how, at this time, trade was taking 
 equality with gentry. " Yea, the merchantman thinketh not him- 
 self well-bred unless he be called one of the worshipful sort of 
 merchants, of whom the handicraftsman hath taken example; 
 and taketh to be called ' Master,' whose father and grandfather 
 were wont to be called ' Good Man.' " 
 
 On the question of " What is a gentleman ?" the author goes 
 back to a very remote period, that of Adam, quoting the old 
 saying : — 
 
 " When Adam delved and Eve span, 
 Who was then the gentleman V 
 
 and he makes the following comment upon this well-known text : 
 " There be many of so gross understanding that they think to 
 
352 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 confound a gentleman, when they ask of him this question. To 
 whom it may be said that so much grace as Adam our first father, 
 received of God at his creation, so much nobility and gentry he 
 received. And to understand perfectly how and after what de- 
 meanor Adam behaved himself, or how he directed the order of 
 his life, the witnesses, I think, in that behalf are far to seek, whose 
 behavior, if it were good and honest, then was he the first gentle- 
 man, even so much as the first earthly follower of virtues. But 
 if there were in him no such virtue, then was he the first gentle- 
 man in whom virtues and gentle deeds did first appear." 
 
 As a training toward excellence, our anonymous author recom- 
 mends severity of discipline from the cradle upward. " Neither," 
 he says, " do I mean to allow any liberty to youth, for as liberty 
 is to all eyes hurtful, so is it to youth a present poison ;" but he 
 forgets that even poisons are administered in small doses in order 
 to cure certain diseases, and that life would be a disease, even to 
 the young, without some measure of liberty. He is terribly afraid 
 that freedom in childhood will spoil the man, who himself will be 
 no man, with too much liberty, but a " Royster ;" " and a ' Roys- 
 ter,' " he adds, " can not do the office of a gentleman, so long I 
 mean as a Roysterian he doth continue." 
 
 He then informs us that there had long been in England a 
 division of classes, under the heads of " Gentle Gentle, Gentle 
 Ungentle, and Ungentle Gentle." These were not classes of so- 
 ciety generally, but classes of the orders of Gentlemen exclusively. 
 The Gentle Gentle are those of noble birth, from dukes' sons down 
 to esquires, provided they join to their " gentle house, gentle man- 
 ners, and noble conditions, which is the cause of the addition of 
 the other word called gentle." This is much such a definition 
 of gentleman as might be now given, with the exception that the 
 question of birth has little to do with the matter, and that gentle 
 manners and noble conditions, as our author calls gentlemanlike 
 bearing, scholarly education, and Christian principles, now make 
 of a man a gentleman, let him be of " gentle" house or not. In- 
 deed, the author himself is not indisposed to accept this method 
 of definition, for on proceeding to tell us what " Gentle Ungentle" 
 is, he says that " Gentle Ungentle is that man which is descended 
 of noble parentage, by the which he is commonly called gentle, 
 
"THE INSTITUTION OF A GENTLEMAN." 353 
 
 and hath in him such corrupt and ungentle manners as to the 
 judgment of all men he justly deserveth the name of ungentle." 
 His remedy again for preventing the gentle becoming ungentle is 
 coercion in youth-time. He thinks that virtue is to be got from 
 the human being like oils or other juices from certain vegetable 
 substances, by ex-pression. Squeeze the human being tightly, 
 press him heavily, he is sure to yield something. No doubt ; but 
 after the pressure he is often of little more use than a well-sucked 
 orange. 
 
 We next come to the " Ungentle Gentle." In the definition of 
 this term, the author, with all his reverence for nobility, is com- 
 pelled to allow that there is a nobility of condition as well as a 
 nobility of birth ; but others who contested this fact, gave a new 
 word to the English tongue, or made a new application of an old 
 word in order to support their theory and assail those whom they 
 sought to lower. 
 
 " Ungentle Gentle," says our author, " is he which is born of a 
 low degree — which man, taking his beginning of a poor kindred, 
 by his virtue, wit, policy, industry, knowledge in laws, valiancy in 
 arms, or such like honest means, becometh a well-behaved and 
 high-esteemed man, preferred then to great office, put in great 
 charge and credit, even so much as he becometh a post or stay of 
 the commonwealth, and so growing rich, doth thereby advance and 
 set up the rest of his poor line or kindred. They are the children 
 of such one commonly called gentleman ; of which sort of gentle- 
 man we have now in England very many, whereby it should 
 appear that virtue flourisheth among us. These gentlemen are 
 now called ' Up-starts,' a term lately invented by such as pondered 
 not the grounds of honest means of rising or coming to promo- 
 tion." Nevertheless, says our censor, there be upstarts enough 
 and to spare. The worshipful unworthies, he tells us, abound ; 
 and the son of good-man Thomas, or good-man John, have obtained 
 the name of gentlemen, the degree of esquires or knights, and 
 possessing " a little dunghill forecast to get lands, by certain dark 
 augmentative practices," they are called "worshipful" at every 
 assize. He dates the origin of this sort of nobility, knighthood 
 and esquirearchy, from the time of the suppression and confisca- 
 
 23 
 
354 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 tion of abbeys and abbey-estates. He has a curious passage on 
 this subject : — 
 
 " They have wrongfully intruded into gentry, and thrust them- 
 selves therein, as Bayard, the cart-jade, might leap into the stable 
 of Bucephalus, and thrust his head into the manger with that wor- 
 thy courser. The particular names of whom, if I should go about 
 to rehearse, it would require long labor, and bring no fruit to the 
 readers thereof. And it is well known that such intruders, such 
 unworthy worshipful men, have chiefly flourished since the put- 
 ting down of abbeys, which time is within my remembrance." 
 
 While allowing that gentlemanly manners help to make the gen- 
 tleman, and that birth is only an accidental matter, having little 
 to do with the subject, he still can not' forbear to reverence rather 
 good men of high birth than good men of low degree. He evidently 
 thinks that he was enjoined by religion to do so, for he remarks : 
 " As in times past, no man was suffered to be ' Knyght of the 
 Roodes,' but such one as was descended of the lyne of gentleman, 
 whereby it appeareth that no men were thought so meet to de- 
 fend the right, that is to say the faith of Christ, as gentlemen, 
 and so to have their offices agreeable with their profession, it is 
 most meet that all gentlemen be called to such room and office as 
 may be profitable to the commonwealth." This idea that the 
 holy sepulchre was to be rescued from the infidels only by gentle- 
 men, and the fact that it has not been so rescued, reminds me of 
 that king of Spain, who, finding himself in danger of being roasted 
 alive, from sitting in a chair which one of his great officers had 
 placed too near the fire, chose to roast on, for the singular reason 
 that there was no grandee at hand to draw his chair away again ! 
 
 In 1555, this writer still accounted the profession of arms as 
 the noblest, the most profitable to the professor, and the most use- 
 ful to the commonwealth. Courage, liberality, and faithful observ- 
 ance of all promises ; thus endowed, he thinks a man is a true 
 gentleman. He draws, however, a happy parallel when admitting 
 that if it become a gentleman to be a good knight and valiant sol- 
 dier, it even more becometh him to be a great statesman. For, 
 " although to do valiantly in the wars it deserveth great praise 
 and recompense, yet to minister justice in the state of peace is an 
 office worthy of higher commendation. The reason is, wars are 
 
"THE INSTITUTION OF A GENTLEMAN." 355 
 
 nothing necessary, but of necessity must be defended when they 
 fall. And contrariwise, peace is a thing not only most necessary, 
 but it is called the best thing which even nature hath given unto 
 man." This parallel, if indeed it may be so called, is only em- 
 ployed, however, for the purpose of showing that certain posts in 
 the state should only be given to gentlemen born. There is a 
 good deal of the red-tapist in our moralist after all ; and he has a 
 horror, still entertained in certain localities, of admitting the dem- 
 ocratic element into the public offices. Thus we find him main- 
 taining that, " Unto a gentleman appertaineth more fully than unto 
 any other sort of man, embassage or message to be done between 
 kings or princes of this earth ; more fitly I say, because gentle- 
 men do know how to bear countenance and comely gesture before 
 the majesty of a king, better than other sorts of men." One 
 would think that the majesty of a king was something too dazzling 
 for a common man of common sense to look upon and live, and 
 yet the writer is evidently aware that there is nothing in it, for he 
 concludes his chapter on this matter by observing that " a gentle- 
 man sent of embassage unto a prince ought to think a king to be 
 but a man, and, in reverence and humility, boldly to say his mes- 
 sage unto him." Surely a man of good sense might do this, irre- 
 spective of his birth, particularly at a time when the unskilfulness 
 and ignorance of gentlemen were so great as to pass into a proverb, 
 and " He shooteth like a gentleman fair and far off," implied not 
 only ill-shooting with bows and arrows, " but it extended farther 
 and reached to greater matters, all to the dispraise of ignorant 
 gentlemen." 
 
 It is so common a matter with us to refer to the days in which 
 this author wrote, as days in which old knights and country gen- 
 tlemen maintained such hospitality as has seldom been since wit- 
 nessed, that we are surprised to find complaint made, in this 
 treatise, of something just the contrary. The author enjoins these 
 knights and gentlemen to repair less to London, and be more seen 
 dispensing hospitality in their own houses. " In the ancient times," 
 he says, " when curious buildings fed not the eye of the wayfaring 
 man, then might he be fed and have good repast at a gentleman's 
 place, so called. Then stood the buttery door without a hatch ; 
 yeoman then had no cause to carve small dishes ; Flanders cooks 
 
356 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 had then no wages for their devices, nor square tables were not 
 used. This variety and change from the old English manner hath 
 smally enriched gentlemen, but much it hath impoverished theii 
 names, not without just punishment of their inconsistency in that 
 behalf." Let me add, that the writer thinks the country knight 
 or gentleman would do well were he to exercise the office of justice 
 of the peace. He is sorely afraid, however, that there is a dis- 
 qualification, on the ground of ignorance. A moralist might have 
 the same fear just now, without coming to the same conclusion. 
 Our author, for instance, argues that reverence is to be paid to the 
 noble, quand meme. Let him be ignorant and tyrannical, yet to 
 reverence him is to give example of obedience to others. This 
 is very poor logic, and what follows is still worse ; for this writer 
 very gravely remarks, that " We ought to bear the offences of 
 noble men patiently, and that if these forget themselves, yet ought 
 not smaller men to be oblivious of their duty in consequence, and 
 fail in their respect." 
 
 "We come upon another social trait, when we find the author 
 lamenting that, however much it becometh a gentleman to be ac- 
 quainted with hawking and hunting, yet that these pastimes are so 
 abused by being followed to excess, that " gentlemen will almost 
 do nothing else, or at the least can do that better than any other 
 thing." To the excess alluded to does the author trace the fact 
 that " there are so many raw soldiers when time of war requireth 
 their help. This is the cause of so many unlearned gentlemen, 
 which, as some say, they understand not the inkhorn terms that 
 are lately crept into our language. And no marvel it is, though 
 they do not understand them, whereas in their own hawking and 
 hunting terms they be ignorants as 'Auvent' and 'Retrouvre,' 
 which they call ' Houent and c J%etrires.'" What better could be 
 expected from men who had given up the practice of the long 
 bow to take to the throwing of dice ? But there was now as wild 
 extravagance of dress as ignorance of uncommon things, in the 
 class of foolish knights and gentlemen. This is alluded to in the 
 chapter on dress, wherein it is said that " the sum of one hundred 
 pounds is not to be accounted in these days to be bestowed of ap- 
 parel for one gentleman, but in times past, a chamber gown was a 
 garment which dwelt with an esquire of England twenty years" — 
 
"THE INSTITUTION OF A GENTLEMAN." 357 
 
 and I believe that the knights were as frugal as the esquires. 
 " Then flourished the laudable simplicity of England," exclaims 
 the author ; " there were no conjurors and hot scholars, applying 
 our minds to learne our new trifle in wearing our apparel." Upon 
 the point of fashions, the author writes with a feeling as if he 
 despaired of his country. " The Englishman," he observes, 
 t; changeth daily the fashion of his garment ; sometimes he delight- 
 eth in many guards, welts and pinks, and pounces. Sometimes 
 again, to the contrary, he weareth his garments as plain as a sack ; 
 yet faileth he not to change also that plainness if any other new 
 fangle be invented. This is the vanity of his delight." And this 
 vanity was common to all men of high degree in his time — to 
 those to whom "honor" was due, from men of less degree — and 
 these were " dukes, earls, lords, and such like, of high estate," as 
 well as to those who were entitled to the " worship" of smaller 
 men, and these were " knights, esquires, and gentlemen." There 
 is here, I think, some confusion in the way such terms are applied ; 
 but I have not made the extract for the purpose of grounding a 
 comment upon it, but because it illustrates one portion of my sub- 
 ject, and shows that while " your honor" was once the due phrase 
 of respect to the peerage, " your worship" was the reverential one 
 paid to knights, esquires, and gentlemen. We still apply the 
 terms, if not to the different degrees named above, yet quite as 
 confusedly, or as thoughtlessly with respect to the point whether 
 there be anything honorable or worshipful in the individual ad- 
 dressed. This, however, is only a form lingering among the lower 
 classes. As matters of right, however, " his honor" still sits in 
 Chancery, and " your worship" is to be seen behind any justice's 
 table. 
 
 We will now return to a race of kings who, whatever their de- 
 fects, certainly did not lack some of the attributes of chivalry. 
 
358 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 
 
 THE STUARTS. 
 
 "May't be pleasure to a reader's ear, 
 That never drew save his own country's air, 
 To hear such things related." 
 
 Heywood, the English Traveller 
 
 It is an incontrovertible fact, that the king of England, who 
 least of all resembled a knight in his warlike character, was the 
 one who surpassed all his brother sovereigns in his knightly spirit 
 as a lover. I allude to James I. The godson of Charles IX. of 
 France was in his childhood, what his godfather had never been, 
 a dirty, droll boy. He is the only king who ever added an origi- 
 nal remark to a royal speech set down for him to deliver. The 
 remark in question was, probably, nearly as long as the speech, 
 for James was but four years old when he gave utterance to it. 
 He had been rolling about on the throne impishly watching, the 
 while, the grim lords to whom he, ultimately, recited a prepared 
 speech with great gravity and correctness. At the end of his 
 speech, he pointed to a split in the tiled roof of the hall, or to a 
 rent in the canopy of the throne, and announced to the lords and 
 others present the indisputable fact, that " there was a hole in the 
 parliament." 
 
 The precocious lad passed no very melancholy boyhood in 
 Stirling Castle, till the Raid of Ruthven took him from his natu- 
 ral protectors, and placed him in the hands of Gowrie. His es- 
 cape thence exhibited both boldness and judgment in a youth of 
 sixteen; and when Frederick II., of Denmark, gave him the 
 choice of the two Danish princesses for a wife, no one thought 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 359 
 
 that so gallant a king was undeserving of the compliment. When 
 it was, however, discovered that the royal Dane required James 
 either to accept a daughter or surrender the Orkney and Shetland 
 islands, as property illegally wrested from Denmark, men began 
 to look upon the Danish king as guilty of uncommonly sharp 
 practice toward the sovereign of the Scots. A world of trouble 
 ensued, which it is not my business to relate, although were I in- 
 clined to be discursive — which, of course, I am not — I might 
 find great temptation to indulge therein, upon this very subject. 
 Suffice it then to say, that a world of trouble ensued before James 
 made his selection, and agreed to take, rather than prayed to have 
 granted to him, the hand of Elizabeth, the elder daughter of 
 Frederick II. 
 
 How the intrigues of Queen Elizabeth prevented this marriage 
 I must not pause to relate. The Danish Princess espoused a 
 reigning duke, and James was on the point of engaging himself 
 to Katherine of Navarre, when the offer of the hand of Anne the 
 younger daughter of Frederick being made to him, coupled with 
 the alternative of his either taking Anne, or losing the islands, he 
 " prayed and advised with God, for a fortnight," and wisely re- 
 solved to wed with " pretty Anne." 
 
 The matter progressed anything but smoothly for a time. At 
 length, after endless vexations, the young princess was married by 
 proxy, in August, 1589, and set sail, soon after, for Scotland under 
 convoy of a dozen gallant ships, and with prospects of a very un- 
 pleasant voyage. 
 
 A terrible storm blew bride and convoy on to the inhospitable 
 coast of Norway, and although two or three witches were execu- 
 ted for raising this storm out of very spite, the matter was not 
 mended. Disaster pursued the fleet, and death overtook several 
 who sailed in it, till the coast of Scotland was fairly in sight. 
 The Scotch witches, or perhaps other causes not less powerful 
 than witches, in those seas, in the fall of the year, then blew the 
 fleet back to the mouth of the Baltic. " I was commissifhed," 
 said Peter Munch, the admiral, " to land the young queen in 
 Scotland ; it is clear, therefore, that I can not return with her to 
 Denmark. I will put her majesty ashore, therefore, in Norway." 
 The conclusion was not logically attained, but the fact was as we 
 
360 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 have described it. Letters reached James announcing to him the 
 deplorable condition in which his queen was lying at Upslo, on 
 the Norwegian coast — storm-bound and half-famished. After 
 many projects considered for her relief, James resolved to set 
 forth and seek the princess himself. It is in this passage of his 
 life that we have an illustration of the degree in which he sur- 
 passed all other kings who have sat on the English throne — as a 
 gallant knight es amours. 
 
 Toward the end of October, of this year, in the very stormiest 
 portion of the season, James went, privately, on board a diminu- 
 tive vessel, with a very reluctant party of followers and confede- 
 rates, leaving behind him, for the information of the astonished 
 lieges, a promise to be back in twenty days ; and for their especial 
 profit, a solemn exhortation to live peaceably till he arrived again 
 among them, with his wife. 
 
 The knightly lover landed in Norway, early in November, and 
 made his way along the coast, now on foot, now on horseback 
 anon in sledges, and occasionally in boats or on shipboard, until 
 with infinite pains, and in a sorry plight, he reached Upslo, to no 
 one's astonishment more than the queen's, about the 19th of No- 
 vember. Accoutred and travel-soiled as he was, he proceeded at 
 once to her presence. He was so well-pleased with the fair vision 
 before him, that he made as if he would at once kiss the queen, 
 who stood gazing at him. " It is not the form of my country," 
 said pretty Anne, not very violently holding her head aside. " It's 
 good old Scottish fashion," said the young king : and it was ob- 
 served that in less than an hour, Anne had fallen very completely 
 into the pleasant mode from beyond seas, and quite forgotten the 
 forms of Denmark. 
 
 The young couple were duly married in person, on the Sunday 
 following the arrival of James. The latter, like any Paladin of 
 romance, had perilled life, and contended with almost insurmount- 
 able obstacles, in order to win the royal lady after a less easy 
 fashion than marks the wooing and wedding of kings generally. 
 Such a couple deserved to have the merriest of marriage banquets, 
 but while such a storm was raging without as Norway itself had 
 never seen since the sea-wind first blew over her, such a tempest 
 was raised within, by the Scottish nobles, on a question of prece- 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. oGl 
 
 deuce, that the king himself was chiefly occupied in soothing the 
 quarrellers, and only half succeeded in accomplishing the desired 
 end. Added to this was the prospect of a long winter among the 
 melancholy huts of Upslo. James, however, again exhibited the 
 spirit of a knight of more than ordinary gallantry. He not only 
 resolved that the young queen should not be thus imprisoned amid 
 the Norway snows till May, but he resolved to conduct her him- 
 self across the Norwegian Alps, through Sweden, to her Danish 
 home. The idea of such a -journey seemed to partake of insan- 
 ity, but James proceeded to realize it, by means of method and 
 judgment. He first performed the perilous journey alone, as far 
 as Sweden, and finding it practicable, returned for his wife, and 
 departed a second time, hi her company. Much peril but small 
 accident accompanied them on their way, and when the wedding 
 party arrived safely at Cronenburg, toward the end of January, 
 the marriage ceremony was not only repeated for the third time 
 — to despite the witches who can do nothing against the luck that 
 is said to lie in odd numbers, but there was a succession of mar- 
 riage feasts, at which every gentleman drank deeper and deeper 
 every day, until such uproar and dissension ensued that few kept 
 their daggers in sheath except those who were too drunk to draw 
 them. That all were not in the more disgraceful state, or were 
 not continually in that condition, may be conjectured from the fact 
 that James paid a visit to Tycho Brahe, and conversed with the 
 astronomer in his observatory, in very vigorous Latin. The king, 
 however, was not sorry to leave old Denmark, and when a Scot- 
 tish fleet appeared off Cronenburg, to convey his bride and him- 
 self homeward, he could no more be persuaded to stay a day 
 longer, than Tycho Brahe could be persuaded that Copernicus 
 was correct in dislodging the earth from its Ptolemaic stand-point 
 as centre of the solar system. The bridal party set sail on the 
 21st of April, 1590, and was safely moored in Leith harbor on 
 May-day. A pretty bride could not have arrived at a more ap- 
 propriate season. The royal knight and his lady deserved all the 
 happiness that could be awarded to the gallantry of the one and 
 the beauty of the other. But they did not escape the trials 
 common to much less dignified couples ; and here the knightly 
 character of James may be said to terminate. Exemplary as he 
 
862 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 had been as a lover, and faithful as he continued to be as a 
 husband, he was in all other respects, simply a shrewd man ; and 
 not indeed always that. There is little of this quality in a 
 husband who begins and continues his married life with an in- 
 difference upon the matter of borrowing. With James it was 
 silver spoons to-day, silk stockings to-morrow, and marks and 
 moidores from any one who would give him credit. The old 
 French knight who drank broth out of his own helmet rather 
 than sip it from a borrowed bowl, was moved at least by a good 
 principle, James rather agreed with Carlo Buffone, in Jonson's 
 " Every Man out of his Humor," that " it is an excellent policy to 
 owe much in these days." A policy which, unfortunately, is 
 still deemed excellent, in spite of the ruin which attends its 
 practice. 
 
 The grave chivalry impressed on the face and features of Charles 
 I., is strikingly alluded to by Ben Jonson in his Masque of " The 
 Metamorphosed Gypsies ;" for example : — 
 
 "His brow, his eye, and ev'ry mark of state, 
 As if he were the issue of each grace, 
 And bore about him both his fame and fate. 
 
 Echard says of him, that he was perfect in all knightly exer- 
 cises, " vaulting, riding the great horse, running at the ring, shoot- 
 ing with cross-bows, muskets, and sometimes great guns ; that if 
 sovereignty had been the reward of excellences in those arts, he 
 would have acquired a new title to the crown, being accounted the 
 most celebrated marksman, and the most perfect manager of the 
 great horse, of any in the three kingdoms." 
 
 It was with reference to the expression of the face, alluded to 
 by Jonson, that Bernini the sculptor said, on executing the bust 
 of Charles, that he had never seen any face which showed so much 
 greatness, and withal such marks of sadness and misfortune. The 
 knight, Sir Richard Bulstrode, tells us, that when the bust was 
 being carried across Greenwich Park, it suffered, what Moore 
 calls on another occasion, some " Tobit-like marks of patronage" 
 from the sparrows. " It was wiped off immediately," says Charles's 
 good knight — "but, notwithstanding all endeavors, it would not 
 be gotten off, but turned into blood." No chevalier in poetic ro- 
 mance meets with more threatening portent than the above. 
 
THE KINGS OP ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 363 
 
 The Scotch soldiers of fortune, at this period, were as good rep- 
 resentatives as could be found of the old knight-errant. To them, 
 Vittorio Siri imputes many of the misfortunes of the period. Some 
 one tells of an old Scottish knight exclaiming, in a year of universal 
 peace, " Lord, turn the world upside-down, that gentlemen may 
 make bread of it." So, for the sake of furthering their trade of 
 arms, the Scottish, and, indeed, other mercenary men-at-arms, 
 fanned the flame. The words of Siri are precise on this point, for 
 he says, " Le Leslie, le Gordoni, le Duglas ed altri milordi della 
 Scotia, del' Inghilterra, e dell' Irlanda." 
 
 Never had knights of romance worse fare in the dungeons of 
 morose magicians than they who entered the bloody lists, where 
 was fought out the quarrel between royalty and republicanism. 
 " I heard a great officer say," remarks Blount, " that during the 
 siege of Colchester, he dined at an entertainment, where the great- 
 est delicacies were roast horseflesh." 
 
 The warlike spirit was, probably, never stronger than in this 
 reign. It is well illustrated by Hobbes, who remarks that, the 
 Londoners and citizens of other county capitals, who fought against 
 Charles, " had that in them which, in time of battle, is more con- 
 ducing to victory, than valor and experience both together ; and 
 that was spite." 
 
 But it is as a lover that Charles I. is chiefly distinguished when 
 we consider him solely to discover his knightly qualities. In his 
 early days he was strongly impressed by romance, and possessed 
 of romantic feelings. This fact is best illustrated by his conduct 
 in connection with the Spanish Match ; and to this matter we will 
 devote a brief space, and go back to the time when James was 
 king, and Charles was Prince of Wales. 
 
364 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 THE SPANISH MATCH. 
 
 This unhappy and ill-advised affair, will ever remain one of the 
 darkest blemishes on the uniformly pacific but inglorious reign of 
 the royal pupil of Buchanan; — the whole detail is an ungrateful 
 one of intrigue and ill-faith, and however justly Buckingham may 
 be accused of exerting his baleful influence to dissolve the treaty, 
 and that he did so in the wantonness of his power is now past 
 doubt ; the disgrace which should have attached to him, still hangs 
 round the memory of the timid king and his weak yet gallantly- 
 disposed son. I am more inclined to allow a high-mindedness of 
 feeling to Charles than to his father. The king, who supposed 
 the entire art of reigning lay in dissimulation, may not be charged 
 with an over-scrupulous nicety in his observations of the rules of 
 fair dealing ; but the young prince, at this period, had the senti- 
 ments without the vanity of a knight-errant, his only error was in 
 the constitutional weakness which bent to the arrogance of Buck- 
 ingham's somewhat stronger mind. With such a disposition, the 
 favorite found it as easy to persuade Charles to break off the 
 match, as he had with facility advised him to the romantic journey 
 — as rash as it was impolitic. It would be almost an unprofitable 
 occupation to search for Buckingham's motives, they are quite un- 
 attainable, and, like hunting the hare in a wagon, conjecture 
 might lead us on, but we should, at every step, be farther from 
 our object. It is the received opinion, that the prince's visit was 
 begun in caprice ; and with caprice it ended. Buckingham viewed 
 it, perhaps, at first as a mere adventure, and he terminated it, be- 
 cause his wounded pride suggested to him that he was not the 
 favorite actor in the piece. His terms were, " Ego et rex meus," 
 and a less-distinguished station would not satisfy the haughty in- 
 solence of Somerset's succession in the precarious favor of the king. 
 
THE SPANISH MATCH. 365 
 
 Our British Solomon who willed, but could not restore, the Pal- 
 atinate to his son-in-law, had long been accustomed to consider the 
 union of Charles with the Infanta, as the only available means left 
 by which he could secure the object he had so much at heart. He 
 was not made of the stern stuff, which in other kings would have 
 set a whole army in motion. That " sagacious simpleton" was 
 never in so turbulent a vein. His most powerful weapon was an 
 ambassador, and the best of these were but sad specimens of di- 
 plomacy, and thus, weak as he was, both in the cabinet and field, 
 we may guess at his rapture when the marriage was agreed to by 
 the Court of Spain — the restoration of the Palatinate talked of as 
 a wedding present, and the bride's dowry two millions of eight. 
 
 It was at the expiration of five years of negotiation, that James 
 at length saw the end of what had hitherto been an ever-continuing 
 vista. The dispensation of the Pope, an indispensable preliminary 
 to the union of a Most Catholic princess, with a Protestant heir- 
 apparent, had been held up as a difficulty ; James immediately 
 loosened the reins with which he had held in the Catholic recusants 
 — he set them at liberty, for the good of the reformed religion, he 
 said ; then apologized to his subjects for having so set them at 
 liberty — for the benefit of Protestantism; and finally, he exulted 
 in having accomplished so honorable an end for England, as making 
 her the first to enter the path of moderation. He, moreover, sent 
 to Spain, Digby, the good and great Lord Bristol, and while he 
 was negotiating with Philip IV., the Infanta's brother, George 
 Gage, " a polite and prudent gentleman," was employed at Rome 
 to smooth down the obstacles which the zeal of the Fourteenth 
 Gregory raised in behalf of his mother-church. The parties were 
 a long time at issue as to what period the presumed offspring of 
 this marriage should remain under the guardianship of their moth- 
 er ; that is to say, under the Catholic tuition of her confessors. 
 The period of " fourteen years," was suggested by the Pope, and 
 agreed to by the Court of Spain. Now, George Gage, we are 
 told, was both polite and prudent ; George made some slight ob- 
 jection. The father of the faithful and the descendant of Roderic 
 now named twelve years as the stipulated period of maternal or 
 ecclesiastical rule. Mr. Gage, without losing sight of his prudence, 
 retained all his civility ; he treated the Pope courteously. Greg- 
 
366 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 ory, in return, granted the dispensation, condescended even to agree 
 to the term of nine years, and merely asked a few privileges for 
 the Catholic suite of the Infanta, which were not hard to grant, 
 and would have been impolitic to refuse. James's advisers coun- 
 selled him to demand the restitution of the Palatinate by a pre- 
 liminary treaty. This he wisely refrained from doing; he saw 
 that his desired object was considered inseparable from the mar- 
 riage, and he was content to trust to the existing treaty which, 
 probably, would not have been changed, had he so expressed his 
 wish. There is a curious item in all these diplomatic relations ; 
 beside the public treaty there were various private articles, passed 
 between and signed by the parties concerned, agreeing that more 
 toleration should be granted to the papists, and that more of the 
 penal laws against them should be repealed than was expressed in 
 the public document. There appears also to have existed a yet 
 more private treaty, of even more restricted circulation, whereby 
 James was not to be required to act up to the very letter of that 
 article, by which his royal word pledged what was then considered 
 — emancipation to the Catholics. 
 
 Thus far had proceeded this tedious affair of state ; the nation 
 was beginning to consider its accomplishment with diminished 
 aversion, and a few months would have brought a Spanish Princess 
 of Wales to England, when all this goodly and fair-wrought edifice 
 was destroyed by the temerity of the man who was the evil spirit 
 of the age. Charles's youth and inexperience readily lent a wil- 
 ling ear to the glowing description which Buckingham recounted 
 of the celebrated journey. His young melancholy was excited 
 into cheerfulness, when he dwelt oa the hoped-for and surprised 
 rapture with which his destined bride would receive a prince 
 whose unusual gallantry spurned at the laws of political interest, 
 and whose chivalric feeling had broken through state negotiation, 
 and, despising to woo by treaty, had brought him to her feet to 
 win her by his merits. His blood warmed at the popularity he 
 would acquire by such a step, from a nation famed for its knightly 
 devotion to the fair, and whose watch-word, according to one of 
 its poets, has ever been, " love and the ladyes." Charles would 
 have been a dull lover, indeed, had he only, like other princes, 
 thought his bride not worth the fetching. He would have been 
 
THE SPANISH MATCH. 367 
 
 doubly dull and undeserving had he paused to consider the bear- 
 ings, the risks, or the probable absurdity of the act. There was 
 a certain political danger ; but Charles, young, and a lover, refused 
 to see it ; he was tearing the bonds which might bind more ignoble 
 princes, but were too weak to confine him ; he rent the shackles 
 which proxies force on their principals, and stood in his own 
 princely strength to win a prize which has often lost the world. 
 
 The only step subsequent to the prince's acquiescence, was to 
 obtain the king's permission, a matter of little difficulty. They at- 
 tacked the good-natured and simple James at a moment when his 
 jovial humor would not have denied a greater boon. He had 
 sense, however, to see something of the impropriety of the absence 
 of Charles and Buckingham from England ; but his obtusity of 
 intellect was overpowered by the craft of his favorite, and the pe- 
 titioners at length obtained his unadvised sanction to the wild en- 
 terprise, less by the strength of their arguments, than the persist- 
 ing urgency of its expression. The prince and his companion 
 further obtained a promise of secrecy ; and they saw nothing more 
 wanting than the ordinary preparations for their departure. Left 
 to his own reflections, however, the poor king reproached his own 
 weakness ; he saw with terror that his subjects would not readily 
 forgive him for committing so invaluable a pledge into the hands 
 of a Catholic sovereign, who might detain Charles in order to en- 
 force new exactions or demands ; and with equal terror he saw 
 that even success could not possibly justify the means ; for there 
 was no advantage to be obtained, and no unprejudiced censurer 
 would consider the freak otherwise than as one played for the 
 gratification of the will of the duke, and of an enthusiastic prince, 
 whose abstract idea of chivalrous love had overcome his character 
 for prudence. 
 
 There eusued, on the return of Charles and Buckingham to the 
 royal presence for despatches, a melancholy scene. There were the 
 objurgations and schoolboy blubbering of the monarch, the insolent 
 imperiousness of the favorite, and the silent tears and submission 
 of the prince. The audacious threats of the duke wrung from 
 James the assent which Buckingham required — a second permis- 
 sion for their journey. A knight, Sir Francis Cottington, the 
 prince's secretary, and Endymion Porter, a gentleman of the bed- 
 
368 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 chamber, were selected as the attendants of the Prince. The duke 
 was, however, also to be accompanied bj his master of the horse, 
 a man of knight's degree, Sir Richard Graham. There was a 
 recapitulation of the crying scene when the two former gentlemen 
 were appointed, for Sir Francis boldly pointed out the danger of 
 the proceeding. Charles's countenance showed his displeasure ; 
 but Buckingham was completely carried away by his overwhelm- 
 ing passion. James cried, the duke swore, and the king had noth- 
 ing left to do, but to wish them God speed on their amorous and 
 knight-errant mission. 
 
 There is a work, known to many and read by few, the " Epis- 
 tolas Howelianse," consisting of a collection of familiar letters on 
 many subjects, by a certain James Howell. The author was a 
 cadet of a noble family, several members of which had been on 
 the roll of knighthood. He pushed his fortunes with all the 
 vigor of an aspiring younger brother. His letters exhibit him as 
 agent to a glass factory at Vienna — a tutor — a companion — a 
 clerk — secretary to an embassy — agent again, and finally an at- 
 tache to the privy council. Master Howell, in these epistles, con- 
 tinually rings the changes on the importance of attending to the 
 main chance ; bewails the stagnation which non-employment throws 
 round his fortunes ; or congratulates himself on the progress they 
 are making, through his industry. At the period of Charles's 
 visit to Madrid, he was agent there for the recovery of a vessel 
 taken by unlawful seizure, and he contemplates the prince's arri- 
 val with delight, viewing him as a powerful adjunct to his cause. 
 He complains bitterly of the prince as showing more condescension 
 to the needy Spanish poor, than politeness to the accredited agent 
 of an English company. The agent's honor or ruin depended on 
 the success of his mission, hence good Master Howell is occasion- 
 ally and ill at ease. The success of his mission, too, hung upon 
 the happy termination of the match ; a marriage he considers as 
 the avant-courier of his appointments, but should some unlucky re- 
 verse prevent the end he hopes for, why then, to use one of the 
 worshipful agent's most favorite figures of speech — then "my 
 cake is dough." His letters are the chief authority for what fol- 
 lows. 
 
 It is quite consistent with the whole character of this drama, 
 
THE SPANISH MATCH. 369 
 
 that the journey should be prosecuted through France. Charles 
 and his suite travelled incognito it is true, but Buckingham was 
 rash enough to introduce the prince at a court-ball in Paris, where 
 he perhaps saw and admired the lovely Henrietta Maria. From 
 the gay court of France the errant company speedily decamped, 
 hurried rapidly toward the south, and crossed the frontier just in 
 time to escape the strong arm of the governor of Bayonne, stretched 
 out to arrest their progress. 
 
 On Friday the 7th of March, 1623, Charles and his attendants 
 arrived at Madrid, under the guise of very homely personages. 
 Buckingham took a name which has since served to cover a fugi- 
 tive king of the French — that of (Thomas) Smith, and therewith 
 he entered Bristol's mansion, " 'twixt the gloaming and the murk," 
 with a portmanteau under his arm, while Charles waited on the 
 other side of the street, not as the Prince of "Wales, but as Thomas 
 Smith's brother, John. Lord Bristol did not allow the son of his 
 monarch to remain long in such a situation. Charles was con- 
 ducted to the house, and on being ushered into a bedchamber, he 
 immediately asked for writing materials, and despatched a mes- 
 senger to his father, announcing his safe arrival in the Spanish 
 capital. Cottington and Porter arrived the next day ; and even 
 so soon as this, a report was spreading through the city that James 
 himself was in Madrid. On the evening of Saturday, Bucking- 
 ham went privately to court, in his own person, and told the tale 
 of the adventures of the knight to whom he had acted as squire. 
 The delight of all parties was intense. Olivarez accompanied 
 Buckingham on his return to the prince, to express how immeas- 
 urably glad his Catholic majesty was at his coming. This proud 
 minister, who was the contemporary, and perhaps the equal, of 
 Richelieu, knelt and kissed the prince's hand, and " hugged his 
 thighs," says Mr. Howell, like a slave as he was. Gondomar, 
 too, hastened to offer his respects and congratulations to the young 
 prince. At ten that night, too, came the most distinguished as he 
 was the most desired visiter : Philip himself appeared in generous 
 haste to welcome the person and thank the noble confidence of his 
 almost brother-in-law. The meeting of the parties appears to 
 have been unaffected and cordial. After the salutations and divers 
 embraces which passed in the first interview, they parted late. The 
 
 24 
 
370 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 stern severity of Spanish etiquette would not permit of Charles's 
 introduction to the Infanta, and it was accordingly arranged that 
 the princess should appear in public on Sunday, and the prince 
 meet her on the Prado, just as the knight Guzman sees Inez, in 
 the ancient ballad. In the afternoon of the eventful day, the 
 whole court, neglecting for the occasion all sumptuary laws, ap- 
 peared in all its bravery. Philip, his queen, two brothers, and 
 the Infanta, were together in one carriage, and the princess, the 
 cynosure of attraction, scarcely needed the blue riband which en- 
 circled her arm, as a sign by which Charles might distinguish her. 
 The knightly lover, who had experienced some difficulty in making 
 his way through the exulting multitude, who threw up their caps 
 and cried " God bless him," was in waiting, with his diminutive 
 court and Count Gondomar, to view the defiling of the procession. 
 The royal carriage approached, and as the eyes of the princess 
 first rested on her destined lord, she blushed deeply, "which," 
 adds the calculating Mr. Howell, " we hold to be an impression 
 of love and affection, for the face is oftentimes a true index of the 
 heart." The Infanta, at this period, was only sixteen and tall for 
 her age — "a very comely lady," says the agent, "rather of a 
 Flemish complexion than Spanish, fair-haired, and carried a most 
 pure mixture of red and white in her face : she is full and big- 
 lipped, which is held as beauty rather than a blemish." 
 
 Charles was now honored with a complete court establishment 
 and apartments in the palace ; there was revelry in camp and city ; 
 and the gallantry of the journey so touched this high-minded 
 people, that they declared the beautiful bride ought to have been 
 made Charles's immediate reward. Gayety was at every heart 
 and poesy, in the person of Lope de Vega, celebrated " the Stuart," 
 and " Marie, his star." In all the festivals and carousals at court, 
 Charles was not once permitted to approach "his star." The 
 royal family sat together under a canopy, but there was ever some 
 unwelcome intervener between the lovers, and the prince was 
 compelled to satisfy his ardent soul with gazing. The worthy 
 English agent records that he has seen him " have his eyes im- 
 movably fixed upon the Infanta half-an-hour together, in a thought- 
 ful, speculative posture, which," he sagaciously adds, " would needs 
 be tedious unless affection did sweeten it." It was on one of 
 
THE SPANISH MATCH. 371 
 
 these occasions that Olivarez, with less poetic truth than energy 
 of expression, said that Charles watched her as a cat does a 
 mouse. 
 
 Whatever outward respect Charles may have voluntarily offered 
 to the prejudices and observances of Spanish ceremony, he, and 
 perhaps the blushing Infanta, thought it very cumbersome love- 
 work for young hearts. Words had passed between them, it is 
 true, but only through the medium of an interpreter, and always 
 in the presence of the king, for Philip " sat hard by, to overhear 
 all," and understand if he could, the interpretations made by Lord 
 Bristol. 
 
 Weary of this restraint, the prince soon found means, or rather 
 an opportunity, to break through the pompous obstacles which 
 opposed the good old plan of love-making, and he, with Endymion 
 Porter to attend him, did not fail to profit by the occasion. Near 
 the city, but across the river, the king had a summer-house, called 
 Casa di Campo. Charles discovered that the Infanta was accus- 
 tomed to go very often of a morning to gather May-dew. The 
 knight and esquire, accordingly, donning a silken suit for a spring 
 morning, went out betimes, and arrived without let or hindrance 
 at the Casa di Campo. Their quality was a sure passport, and 
 doors, immovably closed to all others, opened to them. They 
 passed through the house into the garden, but to their wonder and 
 disappointment, the " light of love" was not visible. The Infanta 
 had not arrived, or had fled, and disappointment seemed likely to 
 be the probable reward of their labor. The garden was divided 
 from an adjoining orchard by a high wall ; the prince heard voices 
 on the other side, perhaps heard the voice, and hastened to a 
 door which formed the only communication of the two divisions. 
 To try this outlet was the work of a moment ; to find it most vex- 
 atiously locked, was the conviction of the next. The lover was 
 at bay, and Endymion's confused brain had no resource to suggest. 
 They looked at the wall. It was high, undoubtedly ; but was 
 ever such a barrier too high for a king's son — a knight and a 
 gallant, when it stood between him and such a " star" as the muse 
 of De Vega made of the Infanta ? Charles was on the summit 
 of the wall almost as soon as the thought of climbing it had first 
 struck him ; with the same eagerness he sprang lightly down on 
 
372 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 the other side, and hastily made toward the object of his temerity. 
 Unfortunately there was an old " duenna" of a marquis with her 
 in quality of guardian, and the Infanta, who perchance expected 
 to see the intruder, was constrained, for the sake of appearances, 
 to scream with well-dissembled terror. " She gave a shriek and 
 ran back." Charles followed, but the grim marquis interfered his 
 unwelcome person between the lovers. " Turning to the prince, 
 he fell on his knees, conjuring his highness to retire ;" he swore 
 by his head, that if he admitted the prince to the company of the 
 Infanta, he, the grisly guardian of the dove, might pay for it with 
 his head. As the lady, meanwhile, had fled, and did not return, 
 Charles was not obdurate. Maria, though she had escaped (be- 
 cause seen) could not but be pleased with the proof he had given 
 of his devotion, and as the old marquis continued to talk of his 
 head, the prince, whose business lay more with the heart, turned 
 round and walked slowly away. He advanced toward the door, 
 the portal was thrown open, and thus, as Mr. Howell pithily says, 
 u he came out under that wall over which he had got in." Endy- 
 mion was waiting for him, and perhaps for his story, but the knight 
 was sad, and his squire solemn. Charles looked an embodying 
 of the idea of gloom, and Master Porter, with some ill-will, was 
 compelled to observe a respectful silence. 
 
 The Infanta and her governor hurried back to the palace, while 
 her suitor and his followers were left to rail in their thoughts 
 against the caprice of the ladies, and the reserve of royal masters ; 
 and so ends a pretty story of " how a princess went to gather 
 May-dew." 
 
 This solitary and unsuccessful love-passage was the last effort 
 which Charles made to engage the good-will of Maria. He, at 
 once, retired to his apartments in the palace ; whence he seldom 
 went abroad, except for the purpose of attending a bull-fight. 
 Buckingham was sick a-bed, his offended nobility lay ill-disposed 
 at court, and the palace residence was gradually becoming irksome 
 to all parties. Charles could only have bedchamber prayers, and 
 not possessing a room where he might have attended the service 
 of his own church, the sacred plate and vestments he had brought 
 over were never used. Moreover, the Knights of the Garter, 
 Lords Carlisle and Denbigh, had well nigh set the palace on fire, 
 
THE SPANISH MATCH. 373 
 
 through leaving their lighted pipes in a summer-house. The 
 threatened mischief, however, was prevented by the activity of 
 Master Davies, my Lord of Carlisle's barber, who " leapt down a 
 great height and quenched it." Perhaps a more unfortunate ac- 
 cident than this, in the eyes of a Catholic population, was a brawl 
 within the royal precinct between Ballard, an English priest, and 
 an English knight, Sir Edmund Varney. The prince had a page 
 named Washington, lying mortally ill ; to save his soul the anx- 
 ious priest hastened to the death-bed of the page ; here, however, 
 he met Sir Edmund, an unflinching pillar of the English church. 
 An unseemly scene ensued ; and while knight and priest passed 
 from words to blows, the poor suffering page silently died, and 
 soon after was consigned to the earth under a fig-tree in Lord 
 Bristol's Garden. 
 
 In the meantime, the Princess Infanta was publicly addressed 
 as Princess of Wales, and as an acquaintance with the English 
 language was a possession much to be desired by the bearer of so 
 proud a title, the Lady Maria began " her accidence" and turned 
 her mind to harsh declensions and barbarous conjugations. 
 Though enthusiasm had somewhat cooled, the business continued 
 to proceed ; the most serious interruption was occasioned by the 
 death of the Pontiff, as it entailed many of the ensuing obstacles 
 which at once began to rise. The unfinished work of Gregory 
 was thought to require a da capo movement from his successor 
 Urban, and the new Hierarch commenced a string of objections 
 and proposals, which were of no other effect than to produce mis- 
 trust and delay. Buckingham too, recovering from his sickness, 
 longed to return to England, where it was now understood that 
 the Pope's tardiness was founded on hopes of the prince's conver- 
 sion. The people of England were alarmed and clamorous. 
 Charles and the duke discontented and impatient. The latter 
 urged a return, and the prince, in expressing his wishes to Philip, 
 stated as his reasons, his father's age and infirmities, the murmurs 
 of his people, and the fact that a fleet was at sea to meet him. 
 He added, a most close argument, that the articles which had been 
 signed in England bore, as a proviso, that if he did not return 
 by a specified month, they should be of no validity. It honora- 
 bly belied the suspicions against the Spanish Cabinet, that not 
 
374 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 the slightest opposition was made to the return ; proxies were 
 named, and on the termination of affairs with the Pope, Maria 
 was to follow Charles to England. The lady is said to have re- 
 marked, that if she was not worth waiting for she was not worth 
 having. Charles must have felt the remark, but the duke was 
 paramount, and the wind, which favored their departure, as speed- 
 ily blew away the popularity of a prince whose knightly bearing, 
 modest gallantry, and high virtues, so particularly formed him for 
 the favorite of a romantic nation. The treaty for the Spanish 
 match was broken. 
 
 The secret history of the French match possesses an equal in- 
 terest with that of the Spanish ; but Charles only wrote to his 
 bride on this occasion, and met her, on her way to him, at Can- 
 terbury. 
 
 As a further instance of the chivalrous gallantry of Charles L, 
 it deserves to be recorded, that he it was who suggested a revival 
 of the custom of inviting the ladies to participate in the hon- 
 ors of the Garter. I have elsewhere said, that at one time, the 
 ladies were regularly admitted, but nothing is known as to when 
 this gallant custom was first introduced. Dr. Barrington, in his 
 excellent " Lectures on Heraldry," says, that " in the earliest no- 
 tice of the habit of the order having been issued to the ladies, im- 
 mediately after the accession of Richard II.," they are said to 
 have been " newly received into the Society of the Garter," and 
 were afterward called " Ladies of the Fraternity of St. George." 
 Who were admitted to this distinguished order, or how long the 
 practice continued, does not appear, though it is probable it had 
 fallen into disuse in the time of Henry VIII. Charles remained 
 content with merely suggesting the revival of the custom, and 
 " nothing," says Dr. Barrington, " seems to have been done to car- 
 ry this suggestion into effect. If any one period," — adds the 
 docter, most appropriately — "if any one period were more fit 
 than another for doing it, it must surely be the present, when a 
 lady is the sovereign of the order." 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 875 
 
 THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 
 
 FROM STUAKT TO BRUNSWICK. 
 
 Charles II. loved the paraphernalia of courts and chivalry. 
 He even designed to create two new orders of knighthood — 
 namely " the Knights of the Sea," a naval order for the encour- 
 agement of the sea-service ; and " the Knights of the Royal Oak," 
 in memory of his deliverance, and for the reward of civil merit. 
 He never went much farther than the intention. He adopted the 
 first idea at another's suggestion, and straightway thought no more 
 of it. The second originated with himself, and a list of persons 
 was made out, on which figured the names of the intended knights. 
 The matter never went further. 
 
 At Charles's coronation, the knights of the Bath were peculiarly 
 distinguished for their splendor. They were almost too gorge- 
 ously attired to serve as waiters, and carry up, as they did the 
 first course to the king's own table, at the coronation banquet, 
 after a knight of the Garter had been to the kitchen and had eaten 
 a bit of the first dish that was to be placed before his Sacred 
 Majesty. 
 
 If the king was fond of show, some at least of his knights, 
 shared in the same feeling of vanity. The robes in recent times 
 were worn only on occasions of ceremony and service. The king 
 revived a fashion which his knights followed, and which sober 
 people (who were not knights) called a ridiculous humor. 
 They were " so proud of their coats," as the expression went, 
 that they not only wore them at home, but went about in them, 
 and even rode about the park with them on. Mr. Pepys is par- 
 ticularly indignant on this matter especially so, when told that 
 the Duke of Monmouth and Lord Oxford were seen, " in a hack- 
 
376 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 ney-coaeli, with two footmen in the park with their robes on ; which," 
 adds the censor, " is a most scandalous thing, so as all gravity may 
 be said to be lost, among us." There was more danger of what 
 Pepys calls " gravity" being lost, when the Order, at command 
 of the Sovereign head, elected such men as the Elector of Saxony, 
 who had no other distinction but that of being a good drinker. 
 
 I do not know what the rule now may be in St. George's 
 Chapel, but in the reign of Charles II., a singular regulation is 
 noticed by Pepys. He went in good company to the royal chapel, 
 where he was placed, by Dr. Childe, the organist, "among the 
 knights' stalls, and pretty the observation," he adds, " that no man, 
 but a woman, may sit in a knight's place, where any brass plates 
 are set." What follows is also, in some degree, germane to our 
 purpose. " Hither come cushions to us, and a young singing boy 
 to bring us a copy of the anthem to be sung. And here, for our 
 sakes, had this anthem and the great service sung extraordinary, 
 only to entertain us. Great bowing by all the people, the poor 
 knights particularly, toward the altar." 
 
 Charles II. was the first monarch who allowed the Knights of 
 the Garter to wear, as at present, the star of the order on the 
 breast of the coat. Our present queen has renewed in her gracious 
 person, the custom that was once observed, if we may believe 
 Ashmole, by the ladies, that is, the wives of Knights of the Garter 
 — namely, of wearing the symbol of the order as a jewelled badge, 
 or a bracelet, on the arm. This is in better taste than the mode 
 adopted by Lady Castlereagh, at the gay doings attendant upon 
 the sitting of the Congress of Vienna ; where the noble lady in 
 question appeared at court with her husband's jewelled garter, as 
 a bandeau, round her forehead ! 
 
 James II. has had not merely his apologists but his defenders. 
 He had far more of the knightly character than is commonly sup- 
 posed. For a long time he labored under the disadvantage of 
 being represented, in England, by historians only of the Orange 
 faction. Poor Richard the Third has suffered by a similar mis- 
 fortune. He was wicked enough, but he was not the monster de- 
 scribed by the Tudor historians and dramatists. 
 
 James, in his youth, had as daring and as crafty a spirit as ever 
 distinguished the most audacious of pages. The tact by the em- 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 377 
 
 ployment of which he successfully made his escape from the re- 
 publican guards who kept him imprisoned at St. James's, would 
 alone be sufficient proof of this. When Duke of York, he had the 
 compliment paid to him by Conde, that if ever there was a man 
 without fear it was he. Under Turenne he earned a reputation 
 of which any knight might be proud ; and in the service of Spain, 
 he won praise for courage, from leaders whose bravery was a theme 
 for eulogy in every mouth. 
 
 Partisans, not of his own faction, have censured his going pub- 
 licly to mass soon after his accession ; but it must be remembered 
 that the Knights of the Garter, in the collar of their order, com- 
 placently accompanied him, and that the Duke of Norfolk was the 
 only knight who left him at the door of the chapel. 
 
 He had little of the knight in him in his method of love, if one 
 may so speak. He cared little for beauty ; so little, that his brother 
 Charles remarked that he believed James selected his mistresses 
 by way of penance. He was coarsely minded, and neither prac- 
 tised fidelity nor expected it in others. Whatever he may have 
 been in battle, there was little of the refinement of chivalry about 
 him in the bower. It was said of Louis XIV. and his successor, 
 that if they were outrageously unfaithful to their consorts, they 
 never failed to treat them with the greatest politeness. James 
 lacked even this little remnant of chivalrous feeling ; and he was 
 barely courteous to his consort till adversity taught him the worth 
 of Mary of Modena. 
 
 He was arrogant in prosperity, but the slightest check dread- 
 fully depressed him, and it is hardly necessary to say that he who 
 is easily elated or easily depressed, has little in him of the hero. 
 His conduct when his throne was menaced was that of a poor cra- 
 ven. It had not about it the dignity of even a decent submission. 
 He rose again, however, to the heroic when he attempted to recover 
 liis kingdom, and took the field for that purpose. This conduct 
 has been alluded to by a zealous and impartial writer in the " Gen- 
 tleman's Magazine," for November, 1855. "After the battle of 
 the Boyne," he says, " the Orange party circulated the story that 
 James had acted in the most cowardly manner, and fled from the 
 field before the issue was decided. Not only was this, in a very 
 short time believed, but even sensible historians adopted it, and it 
 
378 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 came down to us as an historical fact. Now in the secret archives 
 of France there are several letters which passed between Queen 
 Mary and the Earl of Tyrconnel, and these together with some of 
 the secret papers, dispose at once of the whole story. It has now 
 been placed beyond a doubt, that the king was forced from the 
 field. Even when the day was lost and the Dutch veterans had 
 routed the half-armed and undisciplined Irish, James rallied a part 
 of the French troops, and was leading them on, when Tyrconnel 
 and Lauzun interposed, pointed out the madness of the attempt, 
 and seizing the reins of his horse, compelled him to retreat." 
 
 This is perhaps proving a little too much, for if the day was 
 lost, it was not bravery, but rashness, that sought to regain it ; and 
 it is the first merit of a knight, the great merit of a general, to dis- 
 cern when blood may be spilled to advantage. As for the archives 
 in France, one would like to know upon what authority the papers 
 preserved there make their assertions. Documents are exceed- 
 ingly valuable to historians, but they are not always trustworthy. 
 The archives of France may contain Canrobert's letter explaining 
 how he was compelled to put constraint upon the bravery of Prince 
 Napoleon, and send him home, in consequence of severe indisposi- 
 tion. And yet the popular voice has since applied a very uncom- 
 plimentary surname to the Prince — quite as severe, but not so 
 unsavory, as that which the people of Drogheda still apply to 
 James. In either case there is considerable uncertainty. I am 
 inclined to believe the best of both of these illustrious personages, 
 but seeing that the uncertainty is great, I am not sure that Scarron 
 was wrong when he said that the best way of writing history was 
 by writing epigrams, pointed so as to prick everybody. 
 
 Cottington (Stafford's Letters) tells us of a domestic trouble in 
 which James was concerned with one of his knights. The king's 
 perplexities about religion began early. " The nurse is a Roman 
 Catholic, to whom Sir John Tunston offered the oath of allegiance, 
 and she refused it ; whereupon there grew a great noise both in 
 the town and court ; and the queen afflicted herself with extreme 
 passion upon knowledge of a resolution to change the woman. Yet 
 after much tampering with the nurse to convert her, she was let 
 alone, to quiet the queen." The dissension is said to have so 
 troubled the nurse, as also to have injured the child, and never 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 379 
 
 had knight or king more difficult task than James, in his desire to 
 please all parties. 
 
 It was one of the characteristics of a knight to bear adversity 
 without repining ; and if Dodd may be believed, James II. was 
 distinguished for this great moral courage in his adversity. The 
 passage in Dodd's Church History is worth extracting, though 
 somewhat long : " James was never once heard to repine at his 
 misfortune. He willingly heard read the scurrilous pamphlets 
 that were daily published in England against him. If at any time 
 he showed himself touched, it was to hear of the misfortunes of 
 those gentlemen who suffered on his account. He would often 
 entertain those about him with the disorders of his youth, but it 
 was with a public detestation of them, and an admonition to others 
 not to follow his example. The very newspapers were to him a 
 lesson of morality ; and the daily occurrences, both in the field and 
 the cabinet, were looked upon by him, not as the result of second 
 causes, but as providential measures to chastise both nations and 
 private persons, according to their deserts. He would sometimes 
 say that the exalted state of a king was attended with this great 
 misfortune, that he lived out of the reach of reproof, and mentioned 
 himself as an example. He read daily a chapter in the Bible, 
 and another in that excellent book, ' The Following of Christ.' In 
 his last illness he publicly forgave all his enemies, and several of 
 them by name, especially the Prince of Orange, whom he acknowl- 
 edged to be his greatest friend, as being the person whom Provi- 
 dence had made use of to scourge him and humble him in the 
 manner he had done, in order to save his soul." As something 
 very nearly approaching to reality, this is. more pleasing than the 
 details of dying knights in romance, who after hacking at one an- 
 other for an hour, mutually compliment each other's courage, and 
 die in the happiest frame of mind possible. Some one speaking 
 of this king, and of Innocent II., made an apt remark, worth the 
 quoting ; namely, that " he wished for the peace of mankind that 
 the pope had turned papist, and the king of England, protestant !" 
 How far the latter was from this desired consummation is wittily 
 expressed in the epitaph on James, made by one of the poet-chev- 
 aliers, or, as some say, by one of the abbes who used to lounge 
 about the terrace of St. Germains. 
 
380 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 " C'est ici que Jacques Second, 
 Sans ministres et sans maitresses, 
 Le matin allait a la messe, 
 Et le soir allait au sermon." 
 
 I have noticed, in a previous page, the very scant courtesy 
 which the queen of Charles I. met with at the hands of a Com- 
 monwealth admiral. The courtesy of some of the Stuart knights 
 toward royal ladies was not, however, of a much more gallant 
 aspect. I will illustrate this by an anecdote told by M. Macaulay 
 in the fourth volume of his history. The spirit of the Jacobites 
 in William's reign had been excited by the news of the fall of 
 Mons. ... "In the parks the malcontents wore their biggest 
 looks, and talked sedition in their loudest tones. The most con- 
 spicuous among these swaggerers was Sir John Fenwick, who 
 had in the late reign been high in favor and military command, 
 and was now an indefatigable agitator and conspirator. In his 
 exaltation he forgot the courtesy which man owes to woman. 
 He had more than once made himself conspicuous by his imper- 
 tinence to the queen. He now ostentatiously put himself in her 
 way when she took her airing, and while all around him uncov- 
 ered and bowed low, gave her a rude stare, and cocked his hat in 
 her face. The affront was not only brutal but cowardly. For 
 the law had provided no punishment for mere impertinence, how- 
 ever gross ; and the king was the only gentleman and soldier in 
 the king was the only gentleman and soldier in the kingdom who 
 could not protect his wife from contumely with his sword. All 
 that the queen could do was to order the park-keepers not to 
 admit Sir John again within the gates. But long after her death 
 a day came when he had reason to wish that he had restrained 
 his insolence. He found, by terrible proof, that of all the Jaco- 
 bites, the most desperate assassins not excepted, he was the only 
 one for whom William felt an intense personal aversion." 
 
 The portrait of William III. as drawn by Burnet, does not 
 wear any very strong resemblance to a hero. The " Roman nose 
 and bright sparkling eyes," are the most striking features, but the 
 " countenance composed of gravity and authority," has more of 
 the magistrate than the man at arms. Nevertheless, and in 
 despite of his being always asthmatical, with lungs oppressed by 
 
THE KINGS OP ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 381 
 
 the dregs of small-pox, and the slow and " disgusting dryness" 
 of his speech, there was something chivalrous in the character of 
 William. In " the day of battle he was all fire, though without 
 passion; he was then everywhere, and looked to everything. 
 His genius," says Burnet in another paragraph, " lay chiefly in 
 war, in which his courage was more admired than his conduct. 
 Great errors were often committed by him; but his heroical 
 courage set things right, as it inflamed those who were about 
 him." In connection with this part of his character may be 
 noticed the fact that he procured a parliamentary sanction for the 
 establishment of a standing army. His character, in other re- 
 spects, is not badly illustrated by a remark which he made, when 
 Prince of Orange, to Sir W. Temple, touching Charles II. 
 " Was ever anything so hot and so cold as this court of yours ? 
 Will the king, who is so often at sea, never learn the word that I 
 shall never forget, since my last passage, when in a great storm 
 the captain was crying out to the man at the helm, all night, 
 ' Steady, steady, steady !' " He was the first of our kings who 
 would not touch for the evil. He would leave the working of all 
 miracles, he said, to God alone. The half-chivalrous, half- 
 religious, custom of washing the feet of the poor on Maundy 
 Thursday, was also discontinued by this prince, the last of the 
 heroic five Princes of Orange. 
 
 Great as William was in battle, he perhaps never exhibited 
 more of the true quality of bravery than when on his voyage to 
 Holland in 1691, he left the fleet, commanded by Sir Cloudesley 
 Shovel and Sir George Rooke, and in the midst of a thick fog 
 attempted, with some noblemen of his retinue, to land in an open 
 boat. " The danger," says Mr. Macaulay, who may be said to have 
 painted the incident in a few words, " proved more serious than 
 they had expected." It had been supposed that in an hour the 
 party would be on shore. But great masses of floating ice impe- 
 ded the progress of the skiff; the night came on, the fog grew 
 thicker, the waves broke over the king and the courtiers. Once 
 the keel struck on a sandbank, and was with great difficulty got 
 off. The hardiest mariners showed some signs of uneasiness, but 
 William through the whole night was as composed as if he had 
 been in the drawing-room at Kensington. " For shame," he said 
 
382 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 to one of the dismayed sailors, " are you afraid to die in my 
 company?" The vehis Ocesarem was, certainly, not finer than 
 this. 
 
 The consort of Queen Anne was of a less chivalrous spirit 
 than William. Coxe says of him, that even in the battle-field he 
 did not forget the dinner-hour, and he appears to have had more 
 stomach for feeding than fighting. Of George I., the best that 
 can be said of him in his knightly capacity, has been said of 
 him, by Smollet, in the remark, that this prince was a circumspect 
 general. He did not, however, lack either courage or impetuosity. 
 He may have learned circumspection under William of Orange. 
 Courage was the common possession of all the Brunswick princes. 
 Of some of them, it formed the solitary virtue. But of George 
 I., whom it was the fashion of poets, aspiring to the laureatship, 
 to call the great, it can not be said, as was remarked of Philip 
 IV. of Spain, when he took the title of " Great," " He has be- 
 come great, as a ditch becomes great, by losing the land which 
 belonged to it." 
 
 One more custom of chivalry observed in this reign, went 
 finally out in that of George II. I allude to the custom of giving 
 hostages. According to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, " two 
 persons of rank were to reside in France, in that capacity, as 
 sureties to France that Great Britain should restore certain of its 
 conquests in America and the West Indies." The " Chevalier," 
 Prince Charles Edward, accounted this as a great indignity to 
 England, and one which, he said, he would not have suffered if 
 he had been in possession of his rights. 
 
 The age of chivalry, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, 
 went out before Burke pronounced it as having departed. I do 
 not think it survived till the reign of George II. In that reign 
 chivalry was defunct, but there was an exclusive class, whose 
 numbers arrogated to themselves that nice sense of honor which 
 was supposed, in olden times, to have especially distinguished the 
 knight. The people alluded to were par excellence, the people of 
 " fashion." The gentlemen who guarded, or who were supposed 
 to guard, the brightest principle of chivalry, were self-styled 
 rather than universally acknowledged, " men of honor." 
 
 The man of honor has been painted by " one of themselves." 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 383 
 
 The Earl of Chesterfield spoke with connoissance de fait, when 
 he treated of the theme ; and his lordship, whose complacency on 
 this occasion, does not permit him to see that his wit is pointed 
 against himself, tells a story without the slightest recollection of 
 the pithy saying of the old bard, " De te fabula narratur." 
 
 " A man of honor," says Lord Chesterfield, " is one who per- 
 emptorily affirms himself to be so, and who will cut anybody's 
 throat that questions it, even upon the best grounds. He is infi- 
 nitely above the restraints which the laws of God or man lay 
 upon vulgar minds, and knows no other ties but those of honor, 
 of which word he is to be the sole expounder. He must strictly 
 advocate a party denomination, though he may be utterly regard- 
 less of its principles. His expense should exceed his income con- 
 siderably, not for the necessaries, but for the superfluities of life, 
 that the debts he contracts may do him honor. There should be 
 a haughtiness and insolence in his deportment, which is supposed 
 to result from conscious honor. If he be choleric and wrong- 
 headed into the bargain, with a good deal of animal courage, he 
 acquires the glorious character of a man of honor ; and if all 
 these qualifications are duly seasoned with the genteelest vices, 
 the man of honor is complete ; anything his wife, children, ser- 
 vants, or tradesmen, may think to the contrary, notwithstanding." 
 
 Lord Chesterfield goes on to exemplify the then modern chiv- 
 alrous guardian of honor, by drawing the portrait of a friend 
 under an assumed name. He paints a certain " Belville" of whom 
 his male friends are proud, his female friends fond, and in whom 
 his party glories as a living example — frequently making that 
 example the authority for their own conduct. He has lost a for- 
 tune by extravagance and gambling ; he is uneasy only as to how 
 his honor is to be intact by acquitting his liabilities from " play." 
 He must raise money at any price, for, as he says, " I would 
 rather suffer the greatest incumbrance upon my fortune, than the 
 least blemish upon my honor." His privilege as a peer will pre- 
 serve him from those " clamorous rascals, the tradesmen ; and lest 
 he should not be able to get money by any other means, to pay 
 his " debts of honor," he writes to the prime minister and offers 
 to sell his vote and conscience for the consideration of fifteen 
 hundred pounds. He exacts his money before he records Ins 
 
384 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 vote, persuaded as he is that the minister will not be the first per- 
 son that ever questioned the honor of the chivalrous Belville. 
 
 The modern knight has, of course, a lady love. The latter is 
 as much like Guinever, of good King Arthur's time, as can well 
 be ; and she has a husband who is more suspicious and jealous 
 than the founder of the chivalrous Round Table. " Belville" can 
 not imagine how the lady's husband can be suspicious, for he and 
 Belville had have been play-fellows, school-fellows, and sworn 
 friends in manhood. Consequently, Belville thinks that wrong 
 may be committed in all confidence and security. " However," 
 he writes to the lady, " be convinced that you are in the hands of 
 a man of honor, who will not suffer you to be ill-used, and should 
 my friend proceed to any disagreeable extremities with you, de- 
 pend upon it, I will cut the c 's throat for him." 
 
 Life in love, so in lying. He writes to an acquaintance that he 
 
 had * told a d d lie last night in a mixed company," and had 
 
 challenged a " formal old dog," who had insinuated that u Belville" 
 had violated the truth. The latter requests his " dear Charles" to 
 be his second — "the booby," he writes of the adversary who had 
 detected him in a lie, " was hardly worth my resentment, but you 
 know my delicacy where honor is concerned." 
 
 Lord Chesterfield wrote more than one paper on the subject of 
 men of honor. For these I refer the reader to his lordship's 
 works. I will quote no further from them than to show a distinc- 
 tion, which the author draws with some ingenuity. " I must ob- 
 serve," he says, " that there is a great difference between a Man 
 of Honor and a Person of Honor. By Persons of Honor 
 were meant, in the latter part of the last century, bad authors and 
 poets of noble birth, who were but just not fools enough to prefix 
 their names in great letters to the prologues, epilogues, and some- 
 times even the plays with which they entertained the public. But 
 now that our nobility are too generous to interfere in the trade of 
 us poor, professed authors" (his lordship is writing anonymously, 
 in the World), "or to eclipse our performances by the distin- 
 guished and superior excellency and lustre of theirs ; the meaning 
 at present of a Person of Honor is reduced to the simple idea 
 of a Person of Illustrious Birth." 
 
 The chivalrous courage of one of our admirals at the close of 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 385 
 
 the reign of George II., very naturally excited the admiration of 
 Walpole. "What milksops," lie writes in 17 GO, "the Marlbor- 
 oughs and Turennes, the Blakes and Van Tromps appear now, 
 who whipped into winter quarters and into ports the moment their 
 nose looked blue. Sir Cloudesley Shovel said that an admiral 
 deserved to be broken who kept great ships out after the end of 
 September ; and to be shot, if after October. There is Hawke in 
 the bay, weathering this winter (January), after conquering in a 
 storm." 
 
 George III. was king during a longer period than any other 
 sovereign of England ; and the wars and disasters of his reign 
 were more gigantic than those of any other period. He was little 
 of a soldier himself; was, however, constitutionally brave; and 
 had his courage and powers tested by other than military matters. 
 The politics of his reign wore his spirit more than if he had been 
 engaged in carrying on operations against an enemy. During 
 the first ten years after his accession, there were not less than 
 seven administrations ; and the cabinets of Newcastle and Bute, 
 Grenville and Rockingham, Grafton and North, Shelburne and 
 Portland, were but so many camps, the leaders in which worried 
 the poor monarch worse than the Greeks badgered unhappy Aga- 
 memnon. Under the administration of Pitt he was hardly more 
 at his ease, and in no degree more so under that of Addington, or 
 that of All the Talents, and of Spencer Perceval. An active 
 life of warfare could not have more worn the spirit and health of 
 this king than political intrigues did ; intrigues, however, be it 
 said, into which he himself plunged with no inconsiderable delight, 
 and with slender satisfactory results. 
 
 He w T as fond of the display of knightly ceremonies, and was 
 never more pleased than when he was arranging the ceremonies 
 of installation, and turning the simple gentlemen into knights. 
 Of the sons who succeeded him, George IV. was least like him 
 in good principle of any sort, while William IV. surpassed him 
 in the circumstance of his having been in action, where he bore 
 himself spiritedly. The race indeed has ever been brave, and I 
 do not know that I can better close the chapter than with an 
 illustration of the " Battle-cry of Brunswick." 
 
 25 
 
THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 THE BATTLE-CRY OF BRUNSWICK. 
 
 The " Battle-cry of Brunswick" deserves to be commemorated 
 among the acts of chivalry. Miss Benger, in her " Memoirs of 
 Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia," relates that Christian, Duke of 
 Brunswick, was touched alike by the deep misfortunes, and the 
 cheerful patience of that unhappy queem Indignant at the neg- 
 lect with which she was treated by her father, James I. of England, 
 and her uncle, Frederick of Denmark, Duke Christian " seemed 
 suddenly inspired by a sentiment of chivalric devotion, as far re- 
 moved from vulgar gallantry as heroism from ferocity. Snatching 
 from her hand a glove, which he first raised with reverence to 
 his lips, he placed it in his Spanish hat, as a triumphal plume 
 which, for her sake, he ever after wore as a martial ornament ; 
 then drawing his sword he took a solemn oath never to lay down 
 arms until he should see the King and Queen of Bohemia rein- 
 stated in the Palatinate. No sooner had Christian taken this en- 
 gagement than he eagerly proclaimed it to the world, by substi- 
 tuting on his ensign, instead of his denunciation of priests, an in- 
 telligible invocation to Elizabeth in the words ' For God and for 
 her !' Fur Gott und fur sie /" 
 
 " Flash swords ! fly pennons ! helm and shield 
 
 Go glittering forth in proud array ! 
 Haste knight and noble to the field, 
 
 Your pages wait, your chargers neigh. 
 Up ! gentlemen of Germany ! 
 
 Who love to be where strife is seen, 
 For Brunswick leads the fight to-day, 
 
 For God and the Queen ! 
 
 " Let them to-day, for fame who sigh, 
 
 And seek the laurels of the brave ; 
 Or they who long, 'ere night, to lie 
 
 Within a soldier's honored grave, 
 Round Brunswick's banner take their stand ; 
 
 'Twill float around the bloody scene, 
 As long as foeman walks the land, 
 
 'Gainst God and the Queen. 
 
 M Draw, Barons, whose proud homes are placed 
 In many a dark and craig-topped tower ; 
 Forward, ye knights, who have been graced 
 In tourney lists and ladies' bower. 
 
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS. 387 
 
 And be your country's good the cause 
 
 Of all this proud and mortal stir, 
 While Brunswick his true sabre draws 
 
 Tor God and for her ! 
 
 " To Him we look for such good aid 
 
 As knights may not be shamed to ask, 
 For vainly drawn would be each blade, 
 
 And weakly fitted to its task, 
 Each lance Ave wield, did we forget 
 
 When loud we raise our battle-cry, 
 For old Bohemia's Queen, to set 
 
 Our hopes with God on high." 
 
 The original superscription on the banner of Brunswick was 
 the very energetic line : " Christian of Brunswick, the friend of 
 God and the enemy of priests." Nay lor, in his " Civil and Mili- 
 tary History of Germany," says, that the Duke imprinted the same 
 legend on the money which he had coined out of the plate of which, 
 he had plundered the convents, and he adds, in a note derived 
 from Galetti, that " the greater part of the money coined by Chris- 
 tian was derived from twelve silver statues of the apostles, which 
 the bigotry of preceding ages had consecrated, in the cathedral of 
 Munster." When the Duke was accused of impiety by some of 
 his followers, he sheltered himself under the authority of Scripture ; 
 and pretended to have only realized the ancient precept : " Go 
 hence, into all parts of the earth !" 
 
 Having seen the English Kings as knights, let us look at a few 
 of the men whom they knighted. 
 
388 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 RECIPIENTS OF KNIGHTHOOD. 
 
 " The dew of grace bless our new knights to-day." 
 
 Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 The Conquest was productive of a far more than average quan- 
 tity 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 sov- 
 ereigns. The good-natured William IV. created them in such 
 profusion that, at last, gentlemen at the head of deputations ap- 
 peared 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 solem- 
 nity, 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 sin- 
 gularly 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 " Ofiiciers 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 
 
RECIPIENTS OF KNIGHTHOOD. 389 
 
 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 Ins 
 way. 
 
 But, to return from Caramel to the Conqueror, I have to ob- 
 serve, 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 in- 
 vention of a white soup for maigre days. The hungry but ortho- 
 dox William had been accustomed to swallow a thin broth " a l'eau 
 de savon ;" but Tezelin placed before him a tureen full of an or- 
 thodox 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 Tez- 
 elin 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 Moliere'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 Rob- 
 ert" 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 
 
390 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 the salvation of dukes — or leaders, as the word implies. The 
 Duke of Xormandy 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 Williain 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. Wil- 
 liam, 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 excep- 
 tion 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 in- 
 stance of the performance of the ceremony that can be discovered. 
 Here a^ain, however, a question arises. Collier has William of 
 
RECIPIENTS OF KNIGHTHOOD. 391 
 
 Malmesbury for his authority. The words of this old author are : 
 4i Athelstane's grandfather, Alfred, seeing and embracing him 
 affectionately, when he was a boy of astonishing beauty and grace- 
 ful 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 Debonnaire, 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 cele- 
 brate 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 Avill keep them !" To which all his 
 lively lads uttered a vigorous " Ay, ay," and the Norman com- 
 missioners were so satisfied with the title, that they did not ven- 
 ture 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. 
 
392 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 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 ap- 
 peared 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 hunts- 
 men blew a mort, and the notes proclaiming the death of the stag 
 were taken up and repeated by the " homers" of the city, who 
 received a trifle from the rosy dean and chapter, for thus increas- 
 ing the noisy importance of the occasion. 
 
 There is something, too, worthy of notice in the fact that Rich- 
 ard 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 pur- 
 suits. This lord mayor, however, derived very considerable profits 
 from pursuits less creditable to him. He was the owner of tene- 
 ments 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 
 
RECIPIENTS OF KNIGHTHOOD. 393 
 
 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 reg- 
 ularly 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 sweep- 
 ing 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 na- 
 ture, 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 
 
394 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 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 ac- 
 knowledgments for money received. One official, however, Hast- 
 ings, 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 XL 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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 mis- 
 tress. 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 Vin. 
 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 dig- 
 nity, 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 in., 
 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 rep- 
 utation in Sir Richard Hutton, Charles I.'s " honest judge," at 
 
RECIPIENTS OP KNIGHTHOOD. 395 
 
 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 cler- 
 gyman." 
 
 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, alias Crom- 
 well, with five other gentlemen, challenged all or any comers from 
 Scotland, Flanders, France, or Spain, who were willing to encoun- 
 ter them in the lists. The challenge was duly accepted, and on 
 the day of encounter, Richard Cromwell flung two of his adver- 
 saries 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 im- 
 provements he had introduced into his art, at a time when printers 
 and paper-makers were considered by Romanists anything but 
 angels of li^ht. 
 
396 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 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 an- 
 swered 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 encourage- 
 ment to men of respectable station to begin the ascent in profes- 
 sion 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 Athence, 
 shows that the first Sir Herbert was a literary knight, who took 
 up pen in the service of the communion into which he had en- 
 tered. 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 Hoiliday, who served the office of Lord Mayor in 1 605, 
 
RECIPIENTS OP KNIGHTHOOD. 397 
 
 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 re- 
 turn. 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 won- 
 derful a change as Louis Napoleon has done in the Bois de Bou- 
 logne ; 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 trans- 
 formed 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 neces- 
 sary 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 Kizzio. 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 dread- 
 ed 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 
 
398 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 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 embas- 
 sador lower his flag to the pennant of the English vessel sent out 
 to receive or escort him. This, however, had been well nigh con- 
 strued 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 : — 
 
 " A goldsmith keeps his wife 
 Wedged into his shop like a mermaid ; nothing of her 
 To be seen, that's -woman, but her upper part." 
 
 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 d-propos to 
 titles, let me add that, in James's time, it was, according to Jon- 
 son — 
 
 " a received heresy 
 
 That England bears no Dukes." 
 
 Southey commenting on this passage, said that the title was prob- 
 ably thought ominous, so many dukes having lost their heads. 
 
 In the second year of the reign of James L, 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 un- 
 comfortable consciousness touching themselves. Thus, we are told 
 that when " an insigificant person" once held down his head, as 
 
RECIPIENTS OP KNIGHTHOOD. 399 
 
 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-com- 
 moners, and violent was the struggle when the question was agi- 
 tated. Heralds stood forth and pleaded before " my lords," as 
 lawyers do, with reference to the party by which they were re- 
 tained. One party considered it absurd that a knight who hap- 
 pened 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 alder- 
 men, simply because the knights-commoners did not care to pur- 
 sue 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 alder- 
 man 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 hun- 
 dred baronets would be created, and that as the titles became 
 extinct, no new hereditary " Sirs" would be nominated. The suc- 
 cessors of James did not think themselves bound by the under- 
 taking of their predecessor. George HI. the least regarded it, 
 for during four or five years of his reign he created baronets at 
 the rate of one a-month. 
 
400 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 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, re- 
 warded accordingly. They were public benefactors, only on con- 
 dition 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 pur- 
 chased 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 
 
RECIPIENTS OF KNIGHTHOOD. 401 
 
 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 dis- 
 puted. 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 
 
 26 
 
402 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 at once came to the conclusion that he had canonized some de- 
 serving but democratic individual of the city of Boston. 
 
 The commonwealth knights, whether in the naval or land ser- 
 vice, 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 com- 
 pared 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 Sevigne 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 pas- 
 sions. 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 ad- 
 mirable 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 
 
RECIPIENTS OF KNIGHTHOOD. 403 
 
 gagged for his audacity, but wben he was thus rendered speech- 
 less, 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 com- 
 pact 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 Scot- 
 tish 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 
 
404 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 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 dis- 
 tinguished — 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 Eoger 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 unli- 
 censed 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 
 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 
 
RECIPIENTS OF KNIGHTHOOD. 405 
 
 gentry to look about them for some illustrious family, and then fix 
 their young darling where he may be both well-educated and sup- 
 ported." 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 asser- 
 tion 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 common- 
 sense. 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 joy- 
 ous company. 
 
 This knight's hospitality was of the same sterling quality. Who 
 forgets that to him Dr. Watts (that amiable intolerant !) was in- 
 debted 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, 
 
406 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 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 weak- 
 ness 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 ac- 
 counted 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. u 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 
 
RECIPIENTS OP KNIGHTHOOD. 407 
 
 and large " ailes 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 sub- 
 scription 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," inter- 
 rupted 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 sim- 
 pler 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 Chev- 
 alier," 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 
 
408 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 was being done in England, the exact reverse was being accom- 
 plished in Spain. Thus we read in the London Gazette of March 
 29 to April 1, 1718, under the head of Madrid, March 21, the fol- 
 lowing 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 Bed- 
 chamber; 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 employ- 
 ments 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 Colo- 
 nels' commissions besides, are obliged to part with their regi- 
 ments." 
 
 This regulation seriously disturbed the revenue of many a Span- 
 ish 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 Ins successor. 
 
 It was not often that George HI. 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 applica- 
 
RECIPIENTS OF KNIGHTHOOD. 409 
 
 tion being renewed, the king asked, if Mr. Day was married, and 
 an affirmative reply being given, George III. immediately rejoined, 
 u 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 contem- 
 porary and well-known squire. 
 
410 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 RICHARD CARR, PAGE ; AND GUY FAUX, 
 ESQUIRE. 
 
 Op all the adventurers of the seventeenth century, I do not 
 know any who so well illustrate the objects I have in view, as the 
 two above-named gentlemen. The first commenced life as a page ; 
 the second was an esquire by condition, and a man-at-arms. 
 Master Faux, for attempting murder, suffered death ; and Richard 
 Carr, although he was convicted of murder, was suffered to live 
 on, and was not even degraded from knighthood. 
 
 When the Sixth James of Scotland reigned, a poor king in a 
 poor country, there was among his retinue a graceful boy — a scion 
 of the ancient house of Fernyhurst, poor in purse, and proud in 
 name. At the court of the extravagant yet needy Scottish king, 
 there was but scant living even for a saucy page ; and Richard 
 Carr of Fernyhurst turned his back on Mid Lothian, and in 
 foreign travel forgot his northern home. 
 
 James, in his turn, directed his face toward the English border ; 
 and subsequently, in the vanities of Whitehall, the hunting at 
 Theobald's, the vicious pleasure of Greenwich, and the royster- 
 ings at Royston, he forgot the graceful lad who had ministered to 
 him at Holyrood, St. Andrews, and Dunbar. 
 
 When this James I. of England had grown nearly tired of his 
 old favorite and minister, Salisbury, for want of better employ- 
 ment he ordered a tilting match, and the order was obeyed with 
 alacrity. In this match Lord Hay resolved to introduce to the 
 King's notice a youth who enjoyed his lordship's especial patron- 
 age. Accordingly, when the monarch was seated in his tribune, 
 and the brazen throats of the trumpets had bidden the rough 
 sport to begin, the young squire of Lord Hay, a handsome youth 
 
RICHARD CARR, PAGE, AND GUY FAUX, ESQUIRE. 411 
 
 of twenty, straight of limb, fair of favor, strong-shouldered, 
 smooth-faced, and with a modesty that enhanced his beauty, rode 
 up on a fiery steed, to lay his master's shield and lance at the feet 
 of the monarch. The action of the apprentice warrior was so 
 full of grace, his steed so full of fire, and both so eminently beauti- 
 ful, that James was lost in admiration. But suddenly, as the 
 youth bent forward to present his master's device, his spur pricked 
 the flank of his charger, and the latter, with a bound and a plunge, 
 threw his rider out of the saddle, and flung young Carr of Ferny- 
 hurst, at the feet of his ex-master, the King. The latter recog- 
 nised his old page, and made amends for the broken leg got in the 
 fall, by nursing the lad, and making him Viscount Rochester, as 
 soon as he was well. James created him knight of the Garter, 
 and taught him grammar. Rochester gave lessons to the King in 
 foreign history. The ill-favored King*Walked about the court 
 with his arms round the neck of the well-favored knight. He was 
 for ever either gazing at him or kissing him. ; trussing his points, 
 settling his curls, or smoothing his hose. When Rochester was 
 out of the King's sight James was mindful of him, and confis- 
 cated the estates of honest men in order to enrich his own new 
 favorite. He took Sherborne from the widow and children of 
 Raleigh, with the cold-blooded remark to the kneeling lady, " I 
 maun have it for Carr !" 
 
 Rochester was a knight who ruled the King, but there was 
 another knight who ruled Rochester. This was the well-born, 
 hot-headed, able and vicious Sir Thomas Overbury. Overbury 
 polished and polluted the mind of Rochester ; read all documents 
 which passed through the hands of the latter, preparatory to 
 reaching those of the King, and not only penned Rochester's 
 own despatches, but composed his love-letters for him. How 
 pointedly Sir Thomas could write may be seen in his " Charac- 
 ters ;" and as a poet, the knight was of no indifferent reputation 
 in his day. 
 
 Rochester, Sir Thomas, and the King, were at the very height 
 of their too-warm friendship, when James gave Frances Howard, 
 the daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, in marriage to young Deve- 
 reux, Earl of Essex. The bride was just in her teens. The 
 bridegroom was a day older. The Bishop of Bath and Wells 
 
412 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 blessed them in the presence of the King, and Ben Jonson and 
 Inigo Jones constructed a masque in honor of the occasion. 
 When the curtain fell, bride and bridegroom went their separate 
 ways ; the first to her mother ; the second to school. Four years 
 elapsed ere they again met ; and then Frances, who had been ill- 
 trained by her mother, seduced by Prince Henry, and wooed by 
 Rochester, looked upon Essex with infinite scorn. Essex turned 
 from her with disgust. 
 
 Rochester then resolved to marry Frances, and Frances em- 
 ployed the poisoner of Paternoster-row, Mrs. Turner, and a certain 
 Dr. Forman, to prepare philters that should make more ardent the 
 flame of the lover, and excite increased aversion in the breast of 
 the husband. Overbury, with intense energy, opposed the idea 
 of the guilty pair, that a divorce from Essex was likely to be pro- 
 cured. He even spoke*of the infamy of the lady, to her lover. 
 Frances, thereupon, offered a thousand pounds to a needy knight, 
 Sir John Ward, to slay Overbury in a duel. Sir John declined 
 the offer. A more successful method was adopted. Sir Thomas 
 Overbury was appointed embassador to Russia, and on his refusing 
 to accept the sentence of banishment, he was clapped into the 
 tower as guilty of contempt toward the king. In that prison, the 
 literary knight was duly despatched by slow poison. The guilt 
 was brought home less to Rochester than to Frances, but 
 the King himself appears to have been very well content at the 
 issue. 
 
 James united with Rochester and the lady to procure a divorce 
 between the latter and Essex. The King was bribed by a sum 
 of £25,000. Essex himself did not appear. Every ecclesiastical 
 judge was recompensed who pronounced for the divorce — carried 
 by seven against five, and even the son of one of them was 
 knighted. This was the heir of Dr. Bilson, Bishop of Winches- 
 ter, and he was ever afterward known by the name of Sir Nul- 
 lity Bilson. 
 
 Sir Nullity danced at the wedding of the famous or infamous 
 pair ; and never was wedding more splendid. King, peers, and 
 illustrious commoners graced it with their presence. The diocesan 
 of Bath and Wells pronounced the benediction. The Dean of St. 
 Paul's wrote for the occasion an epi thalamic eclogue. The Dean 
 
RICHARD CARR, PAGE, AND GUY FAUX, ESQUIRE. 413 
 
 of Westminster supplied the sermon. The great Bacon composed, 
 in honor of the event, the " Masque of Flowers ;" and the City 
 made itself bankrupt by the extravagant splendor of its fetes. One 
 gentleman horsed the bride's carriage, a bishop's lady made the 
 bride's cake, and one humorous sycophant offered the married 
 pair the equivocal gift of a gold warming-pan. 
 
 The King, not to be behindhand in distributing honors, con- 
 ferred one which cost him nothing. He created Rochester Earl 
 of Somerset. 
 
 Two years after this joyous wedding, the gentleman who had 
 made a present to the bride, of four horses to draw her in a gilded 
 chariot to the nuptial altar, had become a knight and secretary of 
 state. Sir Richard (or, as some call him, Sir Robert) Winwood 
 was a worshipper of the now rising favorite, Villiers ; and none 
 knew better than this newly-made knight that the King was utterly 
 weary of his old favorite, Somerset. 
 
 Winwood waited on the King and informed him that a garrulous 
 young apothecary at Flushing, who had studied the use of drugs 
 under Dr. Franklin of London, was making that melancholy town 
 quite lively, by his stories of the abuses of drugs, and the method 
 in which they had been employed by Lord and Lady Somerset, 
 Mrs. Turner (a pretty woman, who invented yellow starched ruffs) 
 and their accomplices, in bringing about the death of Overbury. 
 The food conveyed to the latter was poisoned by Frances and her 
 lover, outside the tower, and was administered to the imprisoned 
 knight by officials within the walls, who were bribed for the purpose. 
 
 There is inextricable confusion in the details of the extraordi- 
 nary trial which ensued. It is impossible to read them without the 
 conviction that some one higher in rank than the Somersets was 
 interested, if not actually concerned, in the death of Overbury. 
 The smaller personages were hanged, and Mrs. Turner put yellow 
 ruffs out of fashion by wearing them at the gallows. 
 
 Lady Somerset pleaded guilty, evidently under the influence of 
 a promise of pardon, if she did so, and of fear lest Bacon's already 
 prepared speech, had she pleaded not guilty, might send her to an 
 ignominious death. She was confined in the Tower, and she im- 
 plored with frantic energy, that she might not be shut up in the 
 room which had been occupied by Overbury. 
 
414 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Somerset appeared before his judges in a solemn suit, and wear- 
 ing the insignia of the Garter. He pleaded not guilty, but despite 
 insufficiency of legal evidence he was convicted, and formally con- 
 demned to be hanged, like any common malefactor. But the ex- 
 page won his life by his taciturnity. Had he, in his defence, or 
 afterward, revealed anything that could have displeased or dis- 
 turbed the King, his life would have paid the forfeit. As it was, 
 the King at once ordered that the Earl's heraldic arms as knight 
 of the Garter should not be taken down. For the short period of 
 the imprisonment of the guilty pair, both guilty of many crimes, 
 although in the matter of Overbury there is some doubt as to the 
 extent of the Earl's complicity, they separately enjoyed the " Lib- 
 erty of the Tower." The fallen favorite was wont to pace the 
 melancholy ramparts with the George and collar round his neck 
 and the Garter of knighthood below his knee. He was often seen 
 in grave converse with the Earl of Northumberland. Sometimes, 
 the guilty wife of Somerset, impelled by curiosity or affection, 
 would venture to gaze at him for a minute or two from her lattice, 
 and then, if the Earl saw her, he would turn, gravely salute her, 
 and straightway pass on in silence. 
 
 When liberated from the Tower, the knight of the Garter, con- 
 victed of murder, and his wife, confessedly guilty, went forth to- 
 gether under protection of a royal pardon. Down to the time 
 of the death of Lady Somerset, in 1632, the wretched pair are 
 said never to have opened their lips but to express, each hatred 
 and execration of the other. The earl lived on till 1645 — long 
 enough to see the first husband of his wife carry his banner tri- 
 umphantly against the son of James, at Edgehill. The two hus- 
 bands of one wife died within a few months of each other. 
 
 Such was the career of one who began life as a page. Let us 
 contrast therewith the early career of one whose name is still more 
 familiar to the general reader. 
 
 Toward the middle of the sixteenth century there was estab- 
 lished at York a respectable and influential Protestant family of 
 the name of Fawkes. Some of the members were in the legal 
 profession, others were merchants. One was registrar and advo- 
 cate of the Consistory Court of the cathedral church of York. 
 Another was notary and proctor. A third is spoken of as a mer- 
 
RICHARD CARR, PAGE, AND GUY FAUX, ESQUIRE. 415 
 
 chant-stapler. All were well to-do ; but not one of them dreamed 
 that the name of Fawkes was to be in the least degree famous. 
 
 The Christian name of the elclesiastical lawyer was Edward. 
 He was the third son of William and Ellen Fawkes, and was the 
 favorite child of his mother. She bequeathed trinkets, small sums, 
 and odd bits of furniture to her other children, but to Edward she 
 left her wedding suit, and the residue of her estate. Edward 
 Fawkes was married when his mother made her will. While the 
 document was preparing, his wife Edith held in her arms an infant 
 boy. To this boy she left her " best whistle, and one old angel of 
 gold." 
 
 The will itself is a curious document. It is devotional, accord- 
 ing to the good custom of the days in which it was made. The 
 worthy old testator made some singular bequests ; to her son 
 Thomas, amid a miscellaneous lot, she specifies, " my second petti- 
 coat, my worsted gowne, gardit with velvet, and a damask kirtle." 
 The " best kirtle and best petticoat" are bequeathed to her daughter- 
 in-law Edith Fawkes. Among the legatees is a certain John 
 (who surely must have been a Joan) Sheerecrofte, to whom, says 
 Mistress Fawkes, " I leave my petticoat fringed about, my woorse 
 grogram kirtle, one of my lynn smockes, and a damask upper 
 bodie." The sex, however, of the legatee is not to be doubted, for 
 another gentleman in Mrs. Fawkes's will comes in for one of her 
 bonnets ! 
 
 The amount of linen bequeathed, speaks well for the lady's 
 housewifery ; while the hats, kirtles, and rings, lead us to fear that 
 the wife of Master Edward Fawkes must have occasionally startled 
 her husband with the amount of little accounts presented to him 
 by importunate dressmakers, milliners, and jewellers. Such, how- 
 ever, was the will of a lady of York three centuries ago, and the 
 child in arms who was to have the silver whistle and a gold angel 
 was none other than our old acquaintance, known to us as Guy 
 Faux. 
 
 Guy was christened on the sixteenth of April, 1570, in the still 
 existing church of St. Michael le Belfry ; and when the gossips 
 and sponsors met round the hospitable table of the paternal lawyer 
 to celebrate the christening of his son, the health of Master Guy 
 followed hard upon that of her gracious highness the queen. 
 
416 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Master Guy had the misfortune to lose his father in his ninth 
 year. " He left me but small living," said Guy, many years after- 
 ward, " and I spent it." After^his sire's decease, Guy was for 
 some years a pupil at the free foundation grammar-school in " the 
 Horse Fayre," adjacent to York. There he accomplished his hu- 
 manities under the Reverend Edward Pulleyne. Among his 
 schoolfellows were Bishop Morton, subsequently Bishop of Dur- 
 ham, and a quiet little boy, named Cheke, who came to be a 
 knight and baronet, and who, very probably went, in after-days, to 
 see his old comrade in the hands of the hangman. 
 
 Some seventeen miles from York stands the pleasant town of 
 Knaresborough, and not far from Knaresborough is the village of 
 Scotten. "When Guy was yet a boy, there lived in this village a 
 very gay, seductive wooer, named Dennis Baynbridge. This 
 wooer was wont to visit the widowed Edith, and the result of his 
 visits was that the widowed Edith rather hastily put away her 
 weeds, assumed a bridal attire, married the irresistible Dennis, 
 and, with her two daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, and her only 
 son Guy, accompanied her new husband to his residence at 
 Scotten. 
 
 Baynbridge was a Roman Catholic, as also were the Pullens, 
 Percies, Winters, Wrights, and others who lived in Scotten or its 
 neighborhood, and whose names figure in the story of the Gun- 
 powder Plot. 
 
 At Scotten, then, and probably soon after his mother's marriage, 
 in 1582, Guy, it may be safely said, left the faith in which he had 
 been baptized, for that of the Romish Church. Had he declined 
 to adopt the creed of his step-sire, he perhaps would have been 
 allowed but few opportunities of angling in the Nidd, rabbiting by 
 Bilton Banks, nutting in Goldsborough Wood, or of passing idle 
 holydays on Grimbald Craig. 
 
 On the wedding-day of Edith Fawkes and Dennis Baynbridge, 
 the paternal uncle of Guy made his will. He exhibited his sense 
 of the step taken by the lady, by omitting her name from the will, 
 and by bequeathing the bulk of his property to the two sisters of 
 Guy. To Guy himself, Uncle Thomas left only " a gold ring," 
 and a " bed and one pair of sheets, with the appurtenances." 
 
 When Guy became of age, he found himself in possession of his 
 
RICHARD CARR, PAGE, AND GUY FAUX, ESQUIRE. 417 
 
 patrimony — some land and a farm-house. The latter, with two 
 or three acres of land, he let to a tailor, named Lumley, for the 
 term of twenty-one years, at the annual rent of forty-two shillings. 
 The remainder he sold at once for a trifle less than thirty pounds. 
 Shortly after, he made over to a purchaser all that was left of his 
 property. He bethought himself for a while as to what course he 
 should take, and finally he chose the profession of arms, and went 
 out to Spain, to break crowns and to w r in spurs. 
 
 In Spain, he fell into evil company and evil manners. He saw 
 enough of hard fighting, and indulged, more than enough, in hard 
 drinking. He was wild, almost savage of temper, and he never 
 rose to a command which gave him any chance of gaining admis- 
 sion on the roll of chivalry. There was a knight, however, named 
 Catesby, who was a comrade of Guy, and the latter clung to him 
 as a means whereby to become as great as that to which he clung. 
 
 Guy bore himself gallantly in Spain ; and, subsequently, in 
 Flanders, he fought with such distinguished valor, that when 
 Catesby and his associates in England were considering where 
 they might find the particular champion whom they needed for 
 their particular purpose in the Gunpowder Plot, the thought of 
 the reckless soldier flashed across the mind of Catesby, and Guy 
 was at once looked after as the " very properest man" for a very 
 improper service. 
 
 The messenger who was despatched to Flanders to sound Guy, 
 found the latter eager to undertake the perilous mission of destroy- 
 ing king and parliament, and thereby helping Rome to lord it again 
 in England. The English soldier in Flanders came over to Lon- 
 don, put up at an inn, which occupied a site not very distant from 
 that of the once well-known " Angel" in St. Clement's Danes, and 
 made a gay figure in the open Strand, till he was prepared to con- 
 summate a work w T hich he thought would help himself to greatness. 
 
 Into the matter of the plot I will not enter. It must be ob- 
 served, however, that knight never went more coolly to look death 
 in the face than Guy went to blow up the Protestant king and the 
 parliament. At the same time it must be added, that Guy had 
 not the slightest intention of hoisting himself with his own petard. 
 He ran a very great risk, it is true, and he did it fearlessly ; but 
 the fact that both a carriage and a boat were in waiting to facili- 
 
 27 
 
418 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 tate his escape, shows that self-sacrifice was not the object of the 
 son of the York proctor. His great ambition was to rank among 
 knights and nobles. He took but an ill-method to arrive at such 
 an object ; but his reverence for nobility was seen even when he 
 was very near to his violent end. If he was ever a hero, it was 
 when certain death by process of law was before him. But even 
 then it was his boast and solace, that throughout the affair there 
 was not a man employed, even to handle a spade, in furtherance 
 of the end in view, who was not a gentleman. Guy died under 
 the perfect conviction that he had done nothing derogatory to his 
 quality ! 
 
 Considering how dramatic are the respective stories of the page 
 and squire, briefly noticed above, it is remarkable that so little use 
 has been made of them by dramatists. Savage is the only one 
 who has dramatized the story of the two knights, Somerset and 
 Overbury. In this tragedy bearing the latter knight's name, and 
 produced at the Haymarket, in June, 1723, he himself played the 
 hero, Sir Thomas. His attempt to be an actor, and thus gain an 
 honest livelihood by his industry, "Was the only act of his life of 
 which Savage was ever ashamed. In this piece the only guilty 
 persons are the countess and her uncle, the Earl of Northampton. 
 This is in accordance with the once-prevailing idea that North- 
 ampton planned the murder of Sir Thomas, in his residence, which 
 occupied the site of the present Northumberland house. The play 
 was not successful, and the same may be said of it when revived, 
 with alterations, at Covent Garden, in 1777. Sheridan, the actor, 
 furnished the prologue. In this production he expressed his be- 
 lief that the public generally felt little interest in the fate of knights 
 and kings. The reason he assigns is hardly logical. 
 
 " Too great for pity, they inspire respect, 
 Their deeds astonish rather than affect. 
 Proving how rare the heart that we can move, 
 Which reason tells us wa can never prove." 
 
 Guy Faux, who, when in Spain, was the 'squire of the higher- 
 born Catesby, has inspired but few dramatic writers. I only know 
 of two. In Mrs. Crouch's memoirs, notice is made of an after- 
 piece, brought out on the 5th of November, 1793, at the Hay- 
 
RICHARD CARR, PAGE, AND GUY FAUX, ESQUIRE. 419 
 
 market. A far more creditable attempt to dramatize the story of 
 Guy Fawkes was made with great success at the Coburg (Victoria) 
 theatre, in September, 1822. This piece still keeps possession of 
 the minor stage, and deservedly ; but it has never been played 
 with such effect as by its first " cast." 0. Smith was the Guy, 
 and since he had played the famous Obi, so well as to cause 
 Charles Kemble's impersonation at the Haymarket to be forgotten, 
 he had never been fitted with a character which suited him so ad- 
 mirably. It was one of the most truthful personations which the 
 stage had ever seen. Indeed the piece was played by such a troop 
 of actors as can not now be found in theatres of more pretensions 
 than the transpontine houses. The chivalric Huntley, very like 
 the chivalric Leigh Murray, in more respects than one, enacted 
 Tresham with a rare ability, and judicious Chapman played Catesby 
 with a good taste, which is not to be found now in the same local- 
 ity. Dashing Stanley was the Monteagle, and graceful Howell 
 the Percy, Beverly and Sloman gave rough portraits of the king 
 and the facetious knight, Sir Tristam Collyivolble — coarse but 
 effective. Smith, however, was* the soul of the piece, and Mr. 
 Fawkes, of Farnley, might have witnessed the representation, 
 and have been proud of his descent from the dignified hero that 
 O. Smith made of his ancestor. 
 
 I have given samples of knights of various qualities, but I have 
 yet to mention the scholar and poet knights. There are many 
 personages who would serve to illustrate the knight so qualified, 
 but I know of none so suitable as Ulrich Von Hutten. 
 
420 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 
 
 " Jacta est alea." — Ulrich's Device. 
 
 Ulrich von Hutten was born on the 21st of April, 1488, 
 in the castle of Stackelberg, near Fulda, in Franconia. He was 
 of a noble family — all the men of which were brave, and all the 
 women virtuous. He had three brothers and two sisters. His 
 tender mother loved him the most, because he was the weakest of 
 her offspring. His father loved him the least for the same reason. 
 For a like cause, however, both parents agreed that a spiritual 
 education best accorded with the frame of Ulrich. The latter, at 
 eleven years old, was accordingly 'sent to learn his humanities in 
 the abbey school at Fulda. 
 
 His progress in all knowledge, religious and secular, made him 
 the delight of the stern abbot and of his parents. Every effort 
 possible was resorted to, to induce him to devote himself for ever 
 to the life of the cloister. In his zealous opposition to this he was 
 ably seconded by a strong-handed and high-minded knight, a friend 
 of his father's named Eitelwolf von Stein. This opposition so 
 far succeeded, that in 1504, when Ulrich was sixteen years of age 
 he fled from the cloister-academy of Fulda, and betook himself 
 to the noted high-school at Erfurt. 
 
 Among his dearest fellow Alumni here were E-ubianus and 
 Hoff, both of whom subsequently achieved great renown. In the 
 Augustine convent, near the school, there was residing a poor 
 young monk, who also subsequently became somewhat famous. 
 Nobody, however, took much account of him just then, and few 
 even cared to know his name — Martin Luther. The plague 
 breaking out at Erfurt, Rubianus was accompanied by Ulrich to 
 Cologne, there to pursue their studies. The heart and purse of 
 Ulrich's father were closed against the son, because of his flight 
 
ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 421 
 
 from Fulda ; but his kinsman Eitelwolf, provided for the necessi- 
 ties of the rather imprudent young scholar. 
 
 The sages who trained the young idea at Cologne were of the 
 old high and dry quality — hating progress and laboriously learned 
 in trifles. At the head of them were Hogstraten and Ortuin. 
 Ulrich learned enough of their manner to be able to crush them 
 afterward with ridicule, by imitating their style, and reproducing 
 their gigantic nonsense, in the famous "Epistoke Obscurorum 
 Virorum." In the meantime he knit close friendship with Sebas- 
 tian Brandt, and CEcolampadius — both young men of progress. 
 The latter was expelled from Cologne for being so, but the Uni- 
 versity of Frankfort on the Oder offered him an asylum. Thither 
 Ulrich repaired also, to be near his friend, and to sharpen his 
 weapons for the coming struggle between light and darkness — 
 Germany against Rome, and the German language against the 
 Latin. 
 
 At Frankfort he won golden opinions from all sorts of people. 
 The Elector, Joachim of Brandenburg ; his brother, the priestly 
 Margrave Albert ; and Bishop Dietrich von Beilow were proud 
 of the youth who did honor to the university. He here first be- 
 came a poet, and took the brothers Von Osthen for his friends. 
 He labored earnestly, and acquired much glory ; but he was a 
 very free liver to boot, though he was by no means particularly 
 so, for the times in which he lived. His excesses, however, 
 brought on a dangerous disease, which, it is sometimes supposed, 
 had not hitherto been known in Europe. Be this as it may, he 
 was never wholly free from the malady as long as he lived, nor 
 ever thought that it much mattered whether he suffered or not. 
 
 He was still ill when he took up for a season the life of a wan- 
 dering scholar. He endured all its miserable vicissitudes, suffered 
 famine and shipwreck, and was glad at last to find a haven, as a 
 poor student, in the Pomeranian University of Griefswalde. The 
 Professor Lotz and his father the Burgomaster, were glad to 
 patronize so renowned a youth, but they did it with such insulting 
 condescension that the spirit of Ulrich revolted; and in 1509, the 
 wayward scholar was again a wanderer, with the world before 
 him where to choose. The Lotzes, who had lent him clothe*, 
 despatched men after him to strip him ; and the poor, half-frozen 
 
422- THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 wretch, reached Rostock half starved, more than half naked, with 
 wounds gaping for vengeance, and with as little sense about him 
 as could be possessed by a man so ill-conditioned. 
 
 He lived by his wits at Rostock. He was unknown and per- 
 fectly destitute ; but he penned so spirited a metrical narrative of 
 his life and sufferings, addressed to the heads of the university 
 there, that these at once received him under their protection. In 
 a short time he was installed in comparative comfort, teaching the 
 classics to young pupils, and experiencing as much enjoyment as 
 he could, considering that the Lotzes of Griefswalde were con- 
 tinually assuring his patrons that their protege was a worthless 
 impostor. 
 
 He took a poet's revenge, and scourged them in rhymes, the 
 very ruggedness of which was tantamount to flaying. 
 
 Having gained his fill of honor at Rostock, his restless spirit 
 urged him once again into the world. After much wandering, he 
 settled for a season at Wittenburg, where he was the delight of 
 the learned men. By their eleemosynary aid, and that of various 
 friends, save his father, who rejoiced in his renown but would not 
 help him to live, he existed after the fashion of many pauper stu- 
 dents of his day. At Wittenburg he wrote his famous " Art of 
 Poetry ;" and he had no sooner raised universal admiration by its 
 production, than forth he rushed once more into the world. 
 
 He wandered through Bohemia and Moravia, thankfully ac- 
 cepting bread from peasants, and diamond rings from princes. 
 He had not a maravedi in his purse, nor clean linen on his back ; 
 but he made himself welcome everywhere. One night he slept, 
 thankfully, on the straw of a barn ; and the next sank, well-fed, 
 into the eider-down of a bishop's bed. He entered Olmutz 
 ragged, shoeless, and exhausted. He left it, after enjoying the 
 rich hospitality he had laughingly extracted from Bishop Turso, 
 on horseback, with a heavy purse in his belt, a mantle on his 
 shoulder, and a golden ring, with a jewel set in it, upon his finger. 
 Such were a student's vicissitudes, in the days of German wan- 
 dering, a long time ago. 
 
 The boy, for he was not yet twenty years of age, betook him- 
 self to Vienna, where he kept a wide circle in continual rapture 
 by Ihe excellence of his poetical productions. These productions 
 
ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 423 
 
 were not " all for love," nor were they all didactic. He poured 
 out war-ballads to encourage the popular feeling in favor of the 
 Emperor Maximilian, against his enemies in Germany and Italy. 
 Ulrich was, for the moment, the Tyrtaeus of his native country. 
 Then, suddenly recollecting that his angry sire had said that if 
 his son would not take the monk's cowl, his father would be con- 
 tent to see him assume the lawyer's coif, our volatile hero hastened 
 to Pavia, opened the law books on an ominous 1st of April, 1512, 
 and read them steadily, yet wearied of them heartily, during just 
 three months. 
 
 At this time Francis the first of France, who had seized on 
 Pavia, was besieged therein by the German and Swiss cavalry. 
 Ulrich was dangerously ill during the siege, but he occupied the 
 weary time by writing sharp epitaphs upon himself. The allies 
 entered the city; and Ulrich straightway departed from it, a 
 charge having been laid against him of too much partiality for 
 the French. The indignant German hurried to Bologna, where 
 he once more addressed himself to the Pandects and the Juris 
 Codices Gentium. 
 
 This light reading so worked on his constitution that fever laid 
 him low, and after illness came destitution. He wrote exquisite 
 verses to Cardinal Gurk, the imperial embassador in Bologna, 
 where the pope for the moment resided ; but he failed in his object 
 of being raised to some office in the cardinal's household. Poor 
 Ulrich took the course often followed by men of his impulses and 
 condition ; he entered the army as a private soldier, and began 
 the ladder which leads to knighthood at the lowest round. 
 
 Unutterable miseries he endured in this character ; but he went 
 through the siege of Pavia with honor, and he wrote such spark- 
 ling rhymes in celebration of German triumphs and in ridicule of 
 Germany's foes, that, when a weakness in the ankles compelled 
 him to retire from the army, he collected his songs and dedicated 
 them to the Emperor. 
 
 The dedication, however, was so very independent of tone, that 
 Maximilian took no notice of the limping knight who had ex- 
 changed the sword for the lyre. Indeed, at this juncture, the man 
 who could wield a sledge-hammer, was in more esteem with the 
 constituted authorities than he avIio skilfully used his pen. The 
 
424 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 youDg poet could scarcely win a smile, even from Albert of Bra- 
 denburg, to whom he had dedicated a poem. Sick at heart, his 
 health gave way, and a heavy fever sent him to recover it at the 
 healing springs in the valley of Ems. 
 
 A short time previous to his entering the army, the young 
 Duke Ulrich of Wurtemburg had begun to achieve for himself a 
 most unenviable reputation. He had entered on his government ; 
 and he governed his people ill, and himself worse. He allowed 
 nothing to stand between his own illustrious purpose and the 
 object aimed at. He had for wife the gentle Bavarian princess, 
 Sabina, and for friend, young Johan von Hutten, a cousin of our 
 hero Ulrich. 
 
 Now, Johan von Hutten had recently married a fair-haired 
 girl, with the not very euphonious appellation of Yon Thumb. 
 She was, however, of noble birth, and, we must add, of light prin- 
 ciples. The duke fell in love with her, and she with the duke, 
 and when his friend Johan remonstrated with him, the ducal 
 sovereign gravely proposed to the outraged husband an exchange 
 of consorts ! 
 
 Johan resolved to withdraw from the ducal court ; and this res- 
 olution alarmed both his wife and the duke, for Johan had no in- 
 tention of leaving his lightsome Von Thumb behind him. There-** 
 fore, the duke invited Johan one fine May morning in the year 
 1515, to take a friendly ride with him through a wood. The in- 
 vitation was accepted, and as Johan was riding along a narrow 
 path, in front of the duke, the latter passed his sword through the 
 body of his friend, slaying him on the spot. 
 
 Having thus murdered his friend, the duke hung him up by 
 the neck in his own girdle to a neighboring tree, and he de- 
 fended the deed, by giving out that ducal justice had only been 
 inflicted on a traitor who had endeavored to seduce the Duchess 
 of Wurtemburg! The lady, however, immediately fled to her 
 father, denouncing the faithlessness of her unworthy husband, on 
 whose bosom the young widow of the murdered Johan now re- 
 clined for consolation. 
 
 On this compound deed becoming known, all Germany uttered 
 a unanimous cry of horror. The noblest of the duke's subjects 
 flung off their allegiance. His very servants quitted him in dis- 
 
ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 425 
 
 gust. His fellow-princes invoked justice against liim and Ulrich 
 von Hutten, from his sick couch at Ems, penned eloquent appeals 
 to the German nation, to rise and crush the ruthless wretch who 
 had quenched in blood, the life, the light, the hope, the very flower 
 of Teutonic chivalry. 
 
 The " Philippics" of Ulrich were mainly instrumental in raising 
 a terrible Nemesis to take vengeance upon his ducal namesake ; 
 and he afterward wrote his " Phalarismus" to show that the tyrant 
 excited horror, even in the infernal regions. The opening sentence 
 — " Jacta est alea !" became his motto ; and his family took for its 
 apt device — " Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor!" From 
 this time forward, Ulrich von Hutten was a public man, and be- 
 came one of the foremost heroes of his heroic age. He was now 
 scholar, poet, and knight. 
 
 His fame would have been a pleasant thing to him, but the 
 pleasure was temporarily diminished by the death of his old bene- 
 factor, Eitelwolf von Stein. The latter was the first German 
 statesman who was also a great scholar ; and his example first 
 shook the prejudice, that for a knight or nobleman to be book- 
 learned was derogatory to his chivalry and nobility. Into the 
 area of public warfare Ulrich now descended, and the enemies of 
 light trembled before the doughty champion. The collegiate 
 teachers at Cologne, with Hogstraten, the Inquisitor, Pfefierkorri, 
 a converted Jew, and Ortuin — at their head, had directed all the 
 powers of the scholastic prejudices against Reuchlin and his fol- 
 lowers, who had declared, that not only Greek, but Hebrew 
 should form a portion of the course of study for those destined to 
 enter the Church. The ancient party pronounced this Heathen- 
 ism ; Reuchlin and Ins party called it Reason, and Germany, was 
 split in two, upon the question. 
 
 At the very height of the contest, a lad with a sling and a stone 
 entered the lists, and so dexterously worked his missiles, that the 
 enemy of learning was soon overcome. The lad was Yon Hut- 
 ten, who, as chief author of those amusing satires, " Epistolae 
 Obscurorum Virorum," ruined Monkery and paralyzed Rome, by 
 making all the world laugh at the follies, vices, crimes, and selfish 
 ignorance of both. 
 
 Leo X. was so enraged, that he excommunicated the authors, 
 
426 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 4 
 
 and devoted them to damnation. " I care no more," said Von 
 Hutten, " for the bull of excommunication than I do for a soap- 
 bubble." The reputation he had acquired, helped him to a recon- 
 ciliation with his family ; but the members thereof had only small 
 respect for a mere learned knight. They urged him to qualify 
 himself for a chancellor, and to repair to Rome, and study the law 
 accordingly. 
 
 Something loath, he turned his face toward the Tyber, in 1515. 
 The first news received of the law-student was to the effect, that 
 having been attacked, dagger in hand, at a pic-nic, near Viterbo, 
 by five French noblemen, whom he had reproved for speaking ill 
 of Germany and the Emperor Maximilian, he had slain one 
 and put the other four to flight. From this fray he himself es- 
 caped with a slash on the cheek. He recounted his victory in a 
 song of triumph, and when the law-student sat down to his books, 
 every one in Rome acknowledged that his sword and his pen were 
 equally pointed. 
 
 His French adversaries threatened vengeance for their humili- 
 ating defeat ; and he accordingly avoided it, by withdrawing to 
 Bologne, where he again, with hearty disgust, applied himself to 
 the severe study of a law which was never applied for justice sake. 
 He found compensation in penning such stirring poetry as his sa- 
 tirical " Nemo," and in noting the vices of the priesthood with the 
 intention of turning his observation to subsequent profit. A feud 
 between the German and Italian students at Bologna soon drove 
 our scholar from the latter place. He took himself to Ferrara 
 and Venice ; was welcomed everywhere by the learned and liberal, 
 and, as he wrote to Erasmus, was loaded by them with solid pud- 
 ding as well as empty praise. 
 
 From this journey he returned to his native country. He re- 
 paired to Augsburg, where Maximilian was holding court, and so 
 well was he commended to the emperor, that on the 15th of June, 
 1517, that monarch dubbed him Imperial Knight, placed a gold 
 ring, symbolic of chivalrous dignity, on his finger, and crowned 
 him a poet, with a laurel wreath, woven by the fairest flower of 
 Augsburg, Constance Peutinger. 
 
 After such honors, his father received him with joy at his 
 hearth: and while Von Hutten went from his native Stackel- 
 
ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 427 
 
 berg to the library at Fulda, yet hesitating whether to take 
 service under the Emperor or under the Elector of Mayence, 
 he bethought himself of the irrefutable work of Laurentius 
 Valla against the temporal authority and possessions of the 
 Popedom. He studied the work well, published an improved 
 edition, and dedicated it, in a letter of fire and ability, to Leo X. ; 
 — a proof of his hope in, or of his defiance of, that accomplished 
 infidel. 
 
 Luther and Von Hutten were thus, each unconscious of the 
 other, attacking Popery on two points, about the same moment. 
 Luther employed fearful weapons in his cause, and wielded them 
 manfully. Von Hutten only employed, as yet, a wit which made 
 all wither where it fell ; and an irony which consumed where it 
 dropped. In the handling of these appliances, there was no man 
 in Germany who was his equal. Leo could admire and enjoy 
 both the wit and the irony ; and he was not disinclined to agree 
 with the arguments of which they were made the supports ; but 
 what he relished as a philosopher, he condemned as a Pontiff. 
 The Florentine, Lorenzo de' Medici, could have kissed the German 
 on either cheek, but the Pope, Leo X., solemnly devoted him to 
 Gehenna. 
 
 As a protection against papal wrath, Von Hutten entered the 
 service of Albert, Elector- Archbishop of Mayence. Albert was 
 a liberal Romanist, but nothing in the least of an Ultra-Montanist. 
 He loved learning and learned men, and he recollected that he 
 was a German before he was a Romanist. In the suite of the 
 elector, Von Hutten visited Paris, in 1518. He returned to 
 Mayence only to carry on more vigorously his onslaught against 
 the begging monks. He accounted them as greater enemies to 
 Germany than the Turks. " TV r e fight with the latter, beyond our 
 frontier for power ; but the former are the corrupters of science, 
 of religion, of morals — and they are in the very midst of us." 
 So does he write, in a letter to Graf Nuenar, at Cologne. 
 
 The building of St. Peter's cost Rome what the building of 
 Versailles cost France — a revolution. In each case, an absolute 
 monarchy was overthrown never again to rise. To provide for 
 the expenses of St. Peter's, the Dominican Tetzel traversed Ger- 
 many, selling his indulgences. 
 
428 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 nounced his mission, as well as those who sent him on it. Von 
 Hutten, in his hatred of monks, looked upon this as a mere monk- 
 ish squabble ; and he was glad to see two of the vocation holding 
 one another by the throat. 
 
 At this precise moment, Germany was excited at the idea of a 
 projected European expedition against the Turks. The Imperial 
 Knight saw clearly the perils that threatened Christendom from 
 that question, and was ready to rush, sword in hand, to meet them. 
 He declared, however, that Europe groaned under a more insup- 
 portable yoke, laid on by Rome, and he deprecated the idea of 
 helping Rome with funds against the Moslem. What a change 
 was here from the Imperial crusading knights of a few centuries 
 earlier. " If Rome," he said, " be serious on the subject of such 
 a crusade, we are ready to fight, but she must pay us for our ser- 
 vices. She shall not have both our money and our blood." He 
 spoke, wrote, and published boldly against Rome being permitted 
 to levy taxes in Germany, on pretence of going to war with the 
 unbelieving Ottomans. At the same moment, Luther was de- 
 nouncing the monks who thought to enrich the coffers of Rome 
 by the sale of indulgences. One was the political, the other the 
 religious enemy of the power which sought to rule men and their 
 consciences from under the shadow of the Colosseum. 
 
 There was little hope of aid from the emperor, but Von Hutten 
 looked for all the help the cause needed in a union of the citizen 
 classes (whom he had been wont to satirize) with the nobility. 
 To further the end in view, he wrote his masterly dialogue of 
 " The Robbers." In this piece, the speakers are knights and 
 citizens. Each side blames the other, but each is made acquainted 
 with the other's virtues, by the interposition of a Deus ex machina 
 in the presence of the knight, Franz von Sickingen. The whole 
 partakes of the spirit and raciness of Bunyan and Cobbett. 
 Throughout the dialogue, the vices of no party in the state find 
 mercy, while the necessity of the mutual exercise of virtue and 
 aid is ably expounded. 
 
 The knight, Franz von Sickingen, was author of a part of this 
 dialogue. His adjurations to Von Hutten not to be over-hasty 
 and his reason why, are no doubt his own. By the production 
 of such papers, Germany was made eager for the fray. This 
 
ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 429 
 
 particular and powerful dialogue was dedicated to John, Pfalzgraf 
 of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, and Count of Spanheim. This 
 illustrious personage had requested Ulrich that whenever he pub- 
 lished any particularly bold book, in support of national liberty, 
 he would dedicate it to him, the duke. The author obeyed, in 
 this instance, on good grounds and with right good will. There 
 is in the dialogue an audible call to war, and this pleased Luther 
 himself, who was now convinced that with the pen alone, the 
 Reformation could not be an established fact. 
 
 Ulrich longed for the contact, whereby to make his country and 
 his church free of Romanist tyranny. But he considers the pos- 
 sibility of a failure. He adjured his family to keep aloof from 
 the strife, that they might not bring ruin on their heads, in the 
 event of destruction falling on his own. The parents of Ulrich 
 were now no more ; Ulrich as head of his house was possessed 
 of its modest estates. Of his own possessions he got rid, as of an 
 encumbrance to his daring and his gigantic activity. He formally 
 made over nearly all to his next brother, in order that his enemies, 
 should they ultimately triumph, might have no ground for seizing 
 them. 
 
 At the same time, he warned his brother to send him neither 
 letters nor money, as either would be considered in the light of 
 aid offered to an enemy, and might be visited with terrible 
 penalties. 
 
 Having rid himself of what few would so easily have parted 
 from, he drew his sword joyously and independently for the sake 
 of liberty alone, and with a determination of never sheathing it 
 until he had accomplished that at which he aimed, or that the ac- 
 complishment of such end had been placed beyond his power. 
 
 " Jacta est alea," cried he, viewing his bright sword, " the die 
 is thrown, Ulrich has risked it." 
 
 In the meantime Von Hutten remained in the service of the 
 Elector- Archbishop of Mayenee. The courtiers laughed at him 
 as a rude knight. The knights ridiculed him as a poor philoso- 
 pher. Both were mistaken ; he was neither poor nor rude, albeit 
 a Bitter and a sage. What he most cared for, was opportunity 
 to be useful in his generation, and leisure enough to cultivate 
 learning during the hours he might call his own. His satirical 
 
430 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 poems, coarsely enough worded against a courtier's life, are ad- 
 mirable for strength and coloring. Not less admirable for taste 
 and power are his letters of this period. In them he denounces 
 that nobility which is composed solely of family pride ; and he 
 denounces, with equally good foundation, the life of " Robber 
 Knights," as he calls them, who reside in their castles, amid every 
 sort of discomfort, and a world of dirt, of hideous noises, and un- 
 savory smells ; and who only leave them to plunder or to be plun- 
 dered. He pronounces the true knights of the period to be those 
 alone who love religion and education. With the aid of these, 
 applied wisely and widely, and with the help of great men whom 
 he names, and who share his opinions, he hopes, as he fervently 
 declares, to see intellect gain more victories than force— to be 
 able to bid the old barbarous spirit which still influenced too many 
 " to gird up its loins and be off." Health came to him with this 
 determination to devote himself to the service and improvement 
 of his fellow-men. It came partly by the use of simple remedies, 
 the chief of which was moderation in all things. Pen and sword 
 were now alike actively employed. He put aside the former, for 
 a moment, only to assume the latter, in order to strike in for ven- 
 geance against the aggressive Duke of Wurtemburg. 
 
 The crimes of this potentate had at length aroused the emperor 
 against him. Maximilian had intrusted the leadership of his 
 army to the famous knight-errant of his day, Franz von Sickingen. 
 This cavalier had often been in open rebellion against the emperor 
 himself; and Hutten now enrolled himself among the followers 
 of Franz. His patron not only gave him the necessary permis- 
 sion but continued to him his liberal stipend ; when the two knights 
 met, and made their armor clash with their boisterous embrace, 
 they swor"e not to stop short of vengeance on the guilty duke, but 
 to fight to the death for liberty and Christendom. They slept 
 together in the same bed in token of brotherly knighthood, and 
 they rose to carry their banner triumphantly against the duke — 
 ending the campaign by the capture of the metropolis, Stutgardt. 
 
 Reuchlin resided in the capital, and the good man was full of 
 fear ; for murder and rapine reigned around him. His fear was 
 groundless, for Von Hutten had urged Sickingen to give out that 
 in the sack of Stutgardt, no man should dare to assail the dwel- 
 
ULEICH VON HUTTEN. 431 
 
 ling of Reuchlin. The two knights left the city to proceed to the 
 spot in the wood where still lay buried the body of the murdered 
 John von Hutten. " It had lain four years in the grave," said 
 Ulrich, " but the features were unchanged. As we touched him, 
 blood flowed afresh from his wounds ; recognise in this the witness 
 of his innocence." The corpse was eventually transported to the 
 family vault at Esslingen. 
 
 The cities of the hard-pressed duke fell, one after the other, 
 and the guilty prince was driven from his inheritance. Von Hut- 
 ten remained with the army, busily plying his pen ; his sword on 
 the table before him, his dagger on his hip, and himself encased 
 in armor to the throat. Erasmus laughingly wrote to him to leave 
 Mars and stick to the Muses. He scarcely needed this advice, 
 for his letters from the camp show that fond as he was of the field, 
 he loved far better the quiet joys of the household hearth. Amid 
 the brazen clangor of trumpets, the neighing of steeds, the rolling 
 of the drum, and the boom of battle, he writes to Piscator 
 (Fischer), his longing for home, and his desire for a wife to smile 
 on, and care for him ; one wiio would soothe his griefs and share 
 his labors — "One," he says, "with whom I might sportively 
 laugh and feel glad in our existence — who would sweeten the 
 bitter of life and alleviate the pressure of care. Let me have a 
 wife, my dear Friederich, and thou knowest how I would love 
 her .... young, fair, shy, gentle, affectionate, and well-educated. 
 She may have some fortune, but not excess of it ; and as for posi- 
 tion, this is my idea thereon : that she will be noble enough whom 
 Ulrich von Hutten chooses for his mate." As a wooer, it will be 
 seen that the scholar-knight had as little of the faint heart as the 
 audacious " Findlay" of Burns, and I might almost say of Freili- 
 grath, so spiritedly has the latter poet translated into German the 
 pleasant lines of the Ayrshire ploughman. 
 
 Well had it been for Ulrich had he found, in 1519, the wife of 
 his complacent visions. The gentle hand would have saved him 
 from many a cruel hour. 
 
 On his return to Mayence he had well-nigh obeyed the universal 
 call addressed to him, to join openly with Luther against Rome. 
 He was withheld by his regard for his liberal patron, the arch- 
 bishop. He remained, partly looking on and partly aiding, on the 
 
432 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 outskirts of the field where the fray was raging. He published a 
 superb edition of Livy, and to show that the reforming spirit still 
 burned brightly in the bosom of the scholar, he also published his 
 celebrated "Vadiscus, sive Trias Romana." This triple-edged 
 weapon still inflicts anguish on Rome. Never had arrow of such 
 power stricken the harlot before. Its point is still in her side ; 
 and her adversaries knew well how to use it, by painfully turning 
 it in the wound. 
 
 The knight now hung up his sword in his chamber at Stackel- 
 berg, and devoted himself to his pen. In the convent library at 
 Fulda he discovered an ancient German work against the suprem- 
 acy of the Pope over the princes and people of Germany. Of 
 this he made excellent use. His own productions against Rome 
 followed one another with great rapidity. Down to the middle of 
 1520 he was incessantly charging the Vatican, at the point of a 
 grey goosequill. He had at heart the freeing of Germany from 
 the ecclesiastical domination of Italy, just as the men of Northern 
 Italy have it at heart to rescue her from the cruel domination of 
 Austria. 
 
 To accomplish his ends, Von Hutten left no means untried. 
 Knight and scholar, noble and villain, the very Emperor Charles 
 V. himself, Ulrich sought to enlist in the great confederacy, by 
 which he hoped to strike a mortal blow at the temporal power of 
 the " Universal Bishop." His books converted even some of the 
 diocesans of the Romish Church ; but Rome thundered excommu- 
 nication on the books and their author, and directed a heavy 
 weight of censure against his protector, Albert of Mayence. 
 
 The archbishop admonished Von Hutten, and interdicted his 
 works. This step decided Ulrich's course. He at once addressed 
 his first letter to Luther. It began with the cry of " Freedom for 
 ever !" and it offered heart, head, soul, body, brains, and purse, in 
 furtherance of the great cause. He tendered to Luther, in the 
 name of Sickingen, a secure place of residence ; and he established 
 his first unassailable battery against Rome, by erecting a printing- 
 press in his own room in the castle of Stackelberg, whence he di- 
 rected many a raking fire against all his assailants. " Jacta est 
 alea !" was his cry ; " Let the enemies of light look to it !" 
 
 From Fulda he started to the court of the Emperor Charles V. 
 
ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 433 
 
 at Brussels. But his enemies stood between him and the foot of 
 the throne, and he was not allowed to approach it. His life, too, 
 was being constantly threatened. He withdrew before these 
 threats, once more into Germany, taking compensation by the 
 way, for his disappointment, by a characteristic bit of spirit. He 
 happened to fall in with Hogstraten, the heretic-finder, and the 
 arch-enemy of Reuchlin. Ulrich belabored him with a sheathed 
 sword till every bone in the body of Hogstraten was sore. In re- 
 turn, the knight was outlawed, and Leo X. haughtily commanded 
 that hands should be laid upon him wherever he might be found, 
 and that he should be delivered, gagged, and bound, to the Roman 
 tribunals. 
 
 Franz von Sickingen immediately received him within the safe 
 shelter of his strong fortress of Ebernberg, where already a score 
 of renowned theological refugees had found an asylum. The col- 
 loquies of the illustrious fugitives made the old walls ring again. 
 Von Hutten reduced these colloquies to writing, and I may name, 
 as one of their conclusions, that the service of the mass in German 
 was determined on, as the first step toward an established refor- 
 mation. 
 
 The attempt of the Pope to have Ulrich seized and sacrificed, 
 was eagerly applied by the latter to the benefit of the cause he 
 loved. To the emperor, to the elector, to the nobles, knights, and 
 states of Germany, he addressed papers full of patriotism, elo- 
 quence, and wisdom, against the aggression on German liberty. 
 Throughout Germany this scholar-knight called into life the spirit 
 of civil and religious freedom, and Luther, looking upon what 
 Ulrich was doing, exclaimed : " Surely the last day is at hand !" 
 
 These two men, united, lit up a flame which can never be trod- 
 den out. One took his Bible and his pen, and with these pricked 
 Rome into a fury, from which she has never recovered. The 
 other, ungirding his sword, and transferring his printing-press to 
 Ebernberg, sent therefrom glowing manifestoes which made a 
 patriot of every reader. 
 
 The lyre and learning were both now employed by Yon Hutten, 
 in furtherance of his project. His popular poetry was now read 
 or sung at every hearth. Not a village was without a copy, often 
 to be read by stealth, of his " Complaint and Admonition." His 
 
 28 
 
434 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 dialogues, especially that called the " Warner," in which the collo- 
 quists are a Roman alarmist and Franz von Sickingen himself, 
 achieved a similar triumph. It was to give heart to the wavering 
 that Yon Hutten wrote, and sent abroad from his press at Ebern- 
 berg, those remarkable dialogues. 
 
 Franz von Sickingen, his great protector, was for a season ap- 
 prehensive that Ulrich's outcry against Rome was louder than 
 necessary, and his declared resolution to resent oppression by 
 means of the sword, somewhat profane. Ulrich reasoned with 
 and read to the gallant knight. His own good sense, and the ar- 
 guments of Luther and Ulrich, at length convinced him that it was 
 folly and sin to maintain outward respect for Rome as long as the 
 latter aspired to be lord in Germany, above the kaiser himself. 
 Franz soon agreed with Hutten that they ought not to heed even 
 the Emperor, if he commanded them to spare the Pope, when 
 such mercy might be productive of injury to the empire. In such 
 cases, not to obey was the best obedience. They would not now 
 look back. " It is better," so runs it in Von Hutten's " Warner," 
 " to consider what God's will is, than what may enter the heads 
 of individuals, capricious men, more especially in the case wherein 
 the truth of the Gospel is concerned. If it be proved that nothing 
 satisfactory, by way of encouragement, can come to us from the 
 Emperor, they who love the Church and civil liberty must be bold 
 at their own peril, let the issue be what it may." 
 *The dialogue of the "Warner" was, doubtless, not only read to 
 Sickingen during the progress of its composition, but was unques- 
 tionably a transcript of much that was talked about, weighed, and 
 considered between the two friends, as they sat surrounded by a 
 circle of great scholars and soldiers, for whose blood Rome was 
 thirsting. It ends with an assurance of the full adhesion of Franz 
 to the views of Ulrich. " In this matter," says the " Warner" to 
 the knight of Ebernberg, " I see you have a passionate and zealous 
 instigator, a fellow named Von Hutten, who can brook delay with 
 patience, and who has heaped piles upon piles of stones, ready to 
 fling them at the first adversary who presents himself." "Ay, 
 in good sooth " is the ready answer of Franz, " and his service is 
 a joy to me, for he has the true spirit requisite to insure triumph 
 in such a struggle as ours." 
 
ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 435 
 
 Thus at Ebernburg the battery was played against the defences 
 of Rome, while Luther, from his known abodes, or from his con- 
 cealment in friendly fortresses, thundered his artillery against the 
 doctrines and superstitions of Eome. The movement had a 
 double aspect. The Germans were determined to be free both as 
 Christians and as citizens. The conducting of such determination 
 to its successful issue could not be intrusted to worthier or more 
 capable hands than those of Luther, aided by the Saxon Frede- 
 rick the Wise, and Ulrich yon Hutten, with such a squire at his 
 side as hearty Franz yon Sickingen. 
 
 In 1521 the young emperor, Charles V., delivered a speech at 
 Worms, which seemed to have been framed expressly to assure 
 the reformers that the emperor was with them. It abounded in 
 promises that the kaiser would do his utmost to effect necessary 
 reforms within the empire. The reformers were in great spirits, 
 but they soon learned, by the summoning of Luther to Worms, 
 and by the subsequent conduct of the emperor, that they had noth- 
 ing to expect from him which they could thankfully acknowledge. 
 
 Ulrich only wrote the more boldly, and agitated the more un- 
 ceasingly, in behalf of the cause of winch Luther was the great 
 advocate. To the kaiser himself he addressed many a daring 
 epistle, as logical as audacious, in order to induce him to shake 
 off the yoke of Rome, and be master of the Roman world, by 
 other sanction than that of German election and papal consent. 
 Von Hutten was more bold and quite as logical in his witheringly 
 sarcastic epistles addressed to the pope's legates at Worms. These 
 epistles show that if at the time there was neither a recognised 
 liberty of the press nor of individual expression, the times them- 
 selves were so out of joint that men dared do much which their 
 masters dared not resent. 
 
 To the entire body of the priesthood assembled at Worms to 
 confront Luther, he addressed similar epistles. They abound in 
 '• thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." In every word 
 there is defiance. Every sentence is a weapon. Every paragraph 
 is an engine of war. The writer scatters his deadly missiles 
 around him, threatening all, wounding many, sometimes indeed 
 breaking his own head by rash management, but careless of all 
 such accidents as long as he can reach, terrify, maul, and put to 
 
436 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 flight the crowd of enemies who have conspired to suppress both 
 learning and religion in Germany. 
 
 In unison with Sickingen, he earnestly entreated Luther to 
 repair to Ebernburg rather than to Worms, as there his knightly 
 friends would protect him from all assailants. The reply of the 
 great reformer is well known. He would go to Worms, he said, 
 though there were as many devils as tiles on the roofs, leagued 
 against him to oppose his journey thither. We can not doubt but 
 that Luther would have been judicially assassinated in that ancient 
 city but for the imposing front assumed by his well-armed and 
 well-organized adherents, who not only crowded into the streets 
 of Worms, but who announced by placards, even in the very bed- 
 chamber of the emperor, that a thousand lives should pay for the 
 loss of one hair of the reformer's head. 
 
 Had it depended on Yon Hutten, the reformers would not have 
 waited till violence had been inflicted on Luther, ere they took 
 their own revenge for wrongs and oppressions done. But he was 
 overruled, and his hot blood was kept cool by profuse and prosaic 
 argument on the part of the schoolmen of his faction. He chafed, 
 but he obeyed. He had more difficulty in reducing to the same 
 obedience the bands of his adherents who occupied the city and 
 its vicinity. These thought that the safety of Luther could only 
 be secured by rescuing him at once from the hands of his enemies. 
 The scholar-knight thought so too; and he would gladly have 
 charged against such enemies. He made no signal, however, for 
 the onslaught ; on the contrary he issued orders forbidding it ; and 
 recommended the confederates to sheathe their swords, but yet 
 to have their hands on the hilt. The elector of Saxony was ad- 
 verse to violence, and Luther left Worms in safety, after defying 
 Rome to her face. 
 
 Then came those unquiet times in which Charles V. so warmly 
 welcomed volunteers to his banner. Seduced by his promises, 
 Franz von Sickingen, with a few hundreds of strong-sinewed men, 
 passed over to the Imperial quarters. The old brotherly gather- 
 ing at Ebernberg was thus broken up ; and Ulrich, who had 
 offended both pope and emperor by his denunciations of ecclesi- 
 astical and civil tyranny, betook himself to Switzerland, where he 
 hoped to find a secure asylum, and a welcome from Erasmus. 
 
ULRICH VON HUTTEN. 437 
 
 This amphibious personage, however, who had already ceased to 
 laud Luther, affected now a horror against Von Hutten. He wrote 
 of him as a poor, angry, mangy wretch, who could not be content 
 to live in a room without a stove, and who was continually pes- 
 tering his friends for pecuniary loans. The fiery Ulrich assailed 
 his false friend in wrathful pamphlets. Erasmus loved the species 
 of warfare into which such attacks drew or impelled him. He 
 replied to Ulrich more cleverly than conclusively, in his " Sponge 
 to wipe out the Aspersions of Von Hutten." But the enmity of 
 Erasmus was as nothing compared with the loss of Von Sickingen 
 himself. In the tumultuary wars of his native land he perished, 
 and Ulrich felt that, despite some errors, the good cause had lost 
 an iron-handed and a clear-sighted champion. 
 
 There is little doubt that it was at the instigation of Erasmus 
 that the priestly party in Basle successfully urged the government 
 authorities to drive Ulrich from the asylum he had temporarily 
 found there. He quietly departed on issue of the command, and 
 took his solitary and painful way to Muhlhausen, where a host 
 of reformers warmly welcomed the tottering skeleton into which 
 had shrunk the once well-knit man. Here his vigor cast aloft its 
 last expiring light. Muhlhausen threw off the papal yoke, but 
 the papist party was strong enough there to raise an insurrection ; 
 and rather than endanger the safety of the town, the persecuted 
 scholar and soldier once more walked forth to find a shelter. He 
 reached Zurich in safety. He went at once to the hearth of 
 Zuinglius, who looked upon the terrible spectre in whom the eyes 
 alone showed signs of life ; and he could hardly believe that the 
 pope cared for the person, or dreaded the intellect, of so ghostlike 
 a champion as this. 
 
 Ulrich, excommunicated, outlawed and penniless, was in truth 
 sinking fast. His hand had not strength to enfold the pommel 
 of his sword. From his unconscious fingers dropped the pen. 
 
 " Who will defend me against my calumniators ?" asked the yet 
 willing but now incapable man. 
 
 " I will !" said the skilful physician, Otto Brunfels ; and the 
 cooper's son stoutly protected the good name of Ulrich, after the 
 latter was at peace in the grave. 
 
 The last hours of the worn-out straggler for civil and religious 
 
438 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 liberty, were passed at Ufnau, a small island in the Lake of 
 Zurich. He had been with difficulty conveyed thither, in the 
 faint hope that his health might profit by the change. There he 
 slowly and resignedly died on the last day of August, 1523, and 
 at the early age of thirty-eight. 
 
 A few dearly-loved books and some letters constituted all his 
 property. He was interred on the island, but no monument has 
 ever marked the spot where his wornout body was laid down to 
 repose. 
 
 Through life, whether engaged with sword or pen, his absorbing 
 desire was that his memory might be held dear by his survivors. 
 He loved activity, abhorred luxury, adored liberty ; and, for the 
 sake of civil and religious freedom, he fought and sang with ear- 
 nest alacrity. Lyre on arm, and sword in hand, he sang and 
 summoned, until hosts gathered round him, and cheered the bur- 
 then of all he uttered. " The die is thrown ! I've risked it for 
 truth and freedom's sake." Against pope and kaiser, priest and 
 soldier, he boldly cried, " Slay my frame you may, but my soul is 
 beyond you !" He was the star that harbingered a bright dawn. 
 His prevailing enemies drove him from his country ; the grave 
 which they would have denied him, he found in Switzerland, and 
 "after life's fitful fever," the scholar-knight sleeps well in the 
 island of the Zurich-Zee. 
 
 From the Zurich-Zee we will now retrace our steps, and con- 
 sider the Sham Knights. 
 
SHAM KNIGHTS. 439 
 
 SHAM KNIGHTS. 
 
 Between Tooting and 'Wandsworth lies a village of some 
 celebrity for its sham knights or mayors — the village of Garrat. 
 The villagers, some century ago, possessed certain common 
 rights which were threatened with invasion. They accordingly 
 made choice of an advocate, from among themselves, to protect 
 their privileges. They succeeded in their object, and as the 
 selection had been originally made at the period of a general 
 election, the inhabitants resolved to commemorate the circumstance 
 by electing a mayor and knighting him at each period of election 
 for a new parliament. The resolution was warmly approved by 
 all the publicans in the vicinity, and the Garrat elections became 
 popular festivities, if not of the highest order, at least of the 
 jolliest sort. 
 
 Not that the ceremony was without its uses. The politicians 
 and wits of the day saw how the election might be turned to 
 profit ; and TTilkes, and Foote, and Garrick, are especially named 
 as having written some of the addresses wherein, beneath much 
 fustian, fun, and exaggeration of both fact and humor, the people 
 were led to notice, by an Aristophanic process, the defects in the 
 political system by which the country was then governed. The 
 publicans, however, and the majority of the people cared more 
 for the saturnalia than the schooling ; and for some years the sham 
 mayors of Garrat were elected, to the great profit, at least, of the 
 tavern-keepers. 
 
 The poorer and the more deformed the candidate, the greater 
 his chance of success. Thus, the earliest mayor of whom there 
 was any record, was Sir John Harper, a fellow of infinite mirth 
 and deformity, whose ordinary occupation was that of an itinerant 
 vender of brick-dust. His success gave dignity to the brick-dust 
 
440 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 trade, and inspired its members with ambition. They had the 
 glory of boasting that their friend and brother " Sir John" sat, 
 when not sufficiently sober to stand, during two parliaments. A 
 specimen of his ready wit is given in his remark when a dead cat 
 was flung at him, on the hustings during the period of his first 
 election. A companion remarked with some disgust upon the 
 unpleasant odor from the animal. " That's not to be wondered 
 at," said Sir John, " you see it is a pole-cat." 
 
 But Sir John was ousted by an uglier, dirtier, more deformed, 
 and merrier fellow than himself. The lucky personage in ques- 
 tion was Sir Jeffrey Dunstan. He was a noted individual, 
 hunched like Esop, and with as many tales, though not always 
 with the like " morals." He was a noted dealer in old wigs, for 
 it was before men had fallen into what was then considered the 
 disreputable fashion of wearing their own hair, under round hats. 
 Sir John was a republican ; but he did not despise either his office 
 of mayor or his courtesy title of knight. Had he possessed more 
 discretion and less zeal, he probably would have prospered in pro- 
 portion. In the best, that is, in the quietest, of times, Sir Jeffrey 
 could with difficulty keep his tongue from wagging. He never 
 appeared in the streets with his wig-bag on his shoulder, without 
 a numerous crowd following, whom he delighted with his sallies, 
 made against men in power, whose weak points were assailable. 
 The French Revolution broke out when Sir Jeffrey was mayor, 
 and this gave a loose to his tongue, which ultimately laid him up 
 by the heels. The knight grew too political, and even seditious, 
 in his street orations, and he was in consequence committed to 
 prison, in 1793, for treasonable practices. This only increased 
 his popularity for a time, but it tamed the spirit of the once 
 chivalrous mayor. When he ceased to be wittily bold, he ceased 
 to be cared for by the constituents whose presence made the elec- 
 tors at Garrat. After being thrice elected he was successfully 
 opposed and defeated, under a charge of dishonesty. The pure 
 electors of Garrat could have borne with a political traitor ; but 
 as they politely said, they " could not a-bear a petty larcenist," 
 and Sir Jeffrey Dunstan was, metaphorically and actually present- 
 ed " with the sack." 
 
 When Manners Sutton ceased to be Speaker, he claimed, I be- 
 
SHAM KNIGHTS. 441 
 
 lieve, to be made a peer ; on the plea that it was not becoming 
 that he who had once occupied the chair, should ever be reduced 
 to stand upon the floor, of the House of Commons. Sir Jeffrey 
 Dunstan had something of a similar sense of dignity. Having 
 fallen from the height of mayor of Garrat, what was then left 
 for Sir Jeffrey ? He got as " drunk as a lord," was never again 
 seen sober, and, in 1797, the year following that of his disgrace, 
 the ex-mayor died of excess. So nice of honor was Sir Jeffrey 
 Dunstan ! 
 
 He was succeeded by Sir Harry Dimsdale, the mutilated muf- 
 fin-seller, whose tenure of office was only brief, however brilliant, 
 and who has the melancholy glory of having been the last of the 
 illustriously dirty line of knighted mayors of Garrat. It was not 
 that there was any difficulty in procuring candidates, but there 
 was no longer the same liberality on the part of the peers and 
 publicans to furnish a purse for them. Originally, the purse was 
 made up by the inhabitants, for the purpose of protecting their 
 collective rights. Subsequently, the publicans contributed in 
 order that the attractions of something like a fair might be added, 
 and therewith great increase of smoking and drinking. At that 
 time the peerage did not disdain to patronize the proceeding, and 
 the day of election was a holyday for thousands. Never before 
 or since have such multitudes assembled at the well-known place 
 of gathering ; nor the roads been so blocked up by carts and car- 
 riages, honorable members on horses, and dustmen on donkeys. 
 Hundreds of thousands sometimes assembled, and, through the 
 perspiring crowd, the candidates, dressed like chimney-sweepers 
 on May-day, or in the mock fashion of the period, were brought 
 to the hustings in the carriages of peers, drawn by six horses, the 
 owners themselves condescending to become their drivers. 
 
 The candidate was ready to swear anything, and each elector 
 was required to make oath, on a brick-bat, " quod rem cum aliqua 
 muliere intra limites istius pagi habuissent." The candidates 
 figured under mock pseudonyms. Thus, at one election there 
 were against Sir Jeffrey, Lord Twankum, Squire Blowmedown, 
 and Squire Gubbings. His lordship was Gardener, the Garrat 
 grave-digger, and the squires were in humble reality, Willis, a 
 waterman, and Simmonds, a Southwark publican. An attempt 
 
442 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 was made to renew the old saturnalia in 1826, when Sir John 
 Paul Pry offered himself as a candidate, in very bad English, and 
 with a similarly qualified success. He had not the eloquent power 
 of the great Sir Jeffrey, who, on presenting himself to the electors 
 named his " estate in the Isle of Man" as his qualification ; an- 
 nounced his intention of relieving the king in his want of money, 
 by abolishing its use ; engaged to keep his promises as long as it 
 was his interest to do so, and claimed the favorable influence of 
 married ladies, on the assurance that he would propose the annul- 
 ling of all marriages, which, as he said, with his ordinary logic, 
 " must greatly increase the influence of the crown, and vastly low- 
 er Indian bonds." He intimated that his own ambition was lim- 
 ited to the governorship of Duck Island, or the bishopric of 
 Durham. The latter appointment was mentioned for the pur- 
 pose of enabling the usually shirtless, but for the moment 
 court-dressed knight, to add that he was " fond of a clean shirt 
 and lawn-sleeves." He moreover undertook to show the gov- 
 ernors of India the way which they ought to be going, to Botany 
 Bay ; and to discover the longitude among the Jews of Duke's 
 Place. 
 
 Courtesy was imperative on all the candidates toward each 
 other. When Sir Jeffrey Dunstan opposed Sir "William Harper, 
 there were five other candidates, namely — " Sir William Blaze, 
 of high rank in the arniy — a corporal in the city train-bands ; 
 Admiral Sir Christopher Dashwood, known to many who has 
 (sic) felt the weight of his hand on their shoulders, and showing 
 an execution in the other. Sir William Swallowtail, an eminent 
 merchant, who supplies most of the gardeners with strawberry 
 baskets ; Sir John Gnawpost, who carries his traffic under his left 
 arm, and whose general cry is ' twenty-five if you win and five if 
 you lose ;' and Sir Thomas Nameless, of reputation unmentiona- 
 ble." Sir John Harper was the only knight who forgot chival- 
 rous courtesy, and who allowed his squire in armor to insult Sir 
 Jeffrey. But this was not done with impunity. That knight ap- 
 pealed to usage, compelled his assailant to dismount, drop 
 his colors, walk six times round the hustings, and humbly ask 
 pardon. 
 
 Sir William Swallowtail, mentioned above, " was one William 
 
SHAM KNIGHTS. 443 
 
 Cock, a whimsical basket-maker of Brentford, who, deeming it 
 proper to have an equipage every way suitable to the honor he 
 aspired to, built his own carriage, with his own hands, to Ins own 
 taste. It was made of wicker work, and was drawn by four, high, 
 hollow-backed horses, whereon were seated dwarfish boys, whim- 
 sically dressed, for postillions. In allusion to the American War, 
 two footmen, tarred and feathered, rode before the carriage. The 
 coachman wore a wicker hat, and Sir William himself, from the 
 seat of his vehicle, maintained his mock dignity, in grotesque ar- 
 ray, amid unbounded applause." It should be added that Foote, 
 who witnessed the humors of the election more than once, brought 
 Sir Jeffrey upon the stage in the character of Doctor Last ; but 
 the wretched fellow, utterly incapable and awfully alarmed, was 
 driven from the stage by the hisses of the whole house. Let us 
 now look abroad for a few " Shams." 
 
 If foreign lands have sent no small number of pseudo-chevaliers 
 to London, they have also abounded in many by far too patriotic 
 or prudent to leave their native land. The Hotel Saint Florentin, 
 in Paris, was the residence of the Prince Talleyrand, but before 
 his time it was the stage and the occasional dwelling-place of an 
 extraordinary actor, known by the appellation of the Chevalier, or 
 the Count de St. Germain. He was for a time the reigning 
 wonder of Paris, where his history was told with many variations ; 
 not one true, and all astounding. The popular voice ascribed to 
 him an Egyptian birth, and attributed to him the power of work- 
 ing miracles. He could cure the dying, and raise the dead ; could 
 compose magic philters, coin money by an impress of his index 
 finger ; was said to have discovered the philosopher's stone, and to 
 be able to make gold and diamonds almost at will. He was, more- 
 over, as generous as he was great, and his modest breast was 
 covered with knightly orders, in proof of the gratitude of sover- 
 eigns whom he had obliged. He was supposed to have been 
 born some centuries back, was the most gigantic and graceful im- 
 postor that ever lived, and exacted implicit faith in his power from 
 people who had none in the power of God. 
 
 The soirees of the Hotel St. Florentin were the admiration of 
 all Paris, for there alone, this knight-count of many orders ap- 
 peared to charm the visiters and please himself. His prodigality 
 
444 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 was enormous, so was his mendacity. He was graceful, witty, 
 refined, yet not lacking audacity when his story wanted pointing, 
 and always young, gave himself out for a Methuselah. 
 
 The following trait is seriously told of him, and is well substan- 
 tiated. " Chevalier," said a lady to him one night, at a crowded 
 assembly of the Hotel St. Florentin, "do you ever remember 
 having, in the course of your voyages, encountered our Lord Jesus 
 Christ ?" " Yes," replied the profane impostor, without hesitation 
 and raising his eyes to heaven. " I have often seen and often 
 spoken to Him. I have frequently had occasion to admire his 
 mildness, genius, and charity. He was a celestial being ; and I 
 often prophesied what would befall Him !" The hearers, far from 
 being shocked, only continued to ply the count with other ques- 
 tions. " Did you ever meet with the Wandering Jew ?" asked a 
 young marquiss. " Often !" was the reply ; and the count added 
 with an air of disdain : — " that wretched blasphemer once dared 
 to salute me on the high-road ; he was then just setting out on his 
 tour of the world, and counted his money with one hand in his 
 pocket, as he passed along." " Count," asked a Chevalier cle St 
 Louis, " who was the composer of that brilliant sonata you played 
 to-night, on the harpsichord ?" " I really can not say. It is a 
 song of victory, and I heard it executed for the first time on the 
 day of the triumph of Trajan." " Will you be indiscreet, dear 
 count, for once," asked a newly-married baronne, " and tell us the 
 names of the three ladies whom you have the most tenderly 
 loved ?" " That is difficult," said the honest knight with a smile, 
 " but I think I may say that they were Lucretia, Aspasia, and 
 Cleopatra." 
 
 The gay world of Paris said he was, at least two thousand 
 years old ; and he did not take the pains to contradict the 
 report. There is reason to suppose that he was the son of 
 a Portuguese Jew, who had resided at Bordeaux. His career 
 was soon ended. 
 
 There was a far more respectable chevalier in our own 
 country to whom the term of Sham Knight can hardly apply ; 
 but as he called himself " Sir John," and that title was not 
 admitted in a court of law, some notice of him may be taken 
 here. 
 
SHAM KNIGHTS. 445 
 
 There was then in the reign of George III., a knight of some 
 notoriety, whose story is rather a singular one. When Sir John 
 Gallini is now spoken of, many persons conclude that this once 
 remarkable individual received the honors of knighthood at the 
 hands of King George. I have been assured so by very eminent 
 operatic authorites, who were, nevertheless, completely in error. 
 Sir John Gallini was a knight of George III.'s time, but he was 
 so created by a far more exalted individual ; in the opinion, at 
 least, of those who give to popes, who are elective potentates, a 
 precedence over kings, who are hereditary monarchs. The won- 
 der is that Gallini was ever knighted at all, seeing that he was sim- 
 ply an admirable ballet-dancer. But he was the first dancer who 
 ever received an encore for the dexterous use of his heels. The 
 Pope accordingly clapped upon them a pair of golden spurs, and 
 Gallini was, thenceforth, Cavaliere del Sperone d'Oro. Such a 
 knight may be noticed in this place. 
 
 Gallini came to England at a time when that part of the world, 
 which was included in the term " people of quality," stood in need 
 of a little excitement. This was in 1759, when there was the 
 dullest of courts, with the heaviest of mistresses, and an opera, 
 duller and heavier than either. Gallini had just subdued Paris 
 by the magic of his saltatory movements. He thence repaired to 
 London, with his reputation and slight baggage. He did not an- 
 nounce his arrival. It was sufficient that Gallini was there. He 
 had hardly entered his lodgings when he was engaged, on his own 
 terms. He took the town by storm. His pas seul was pro- 
 nounced divine. The " quality" paid him more honor than if he 
 had invented something useful to his fellow-men. He could not 
 raise his toe, without the house being hushed into silent admi- 
 ration. His entrechats were performed amidst thundering echoes 
 of delight ; his " whirls" elicited shrieks of ecstacy ; and when he 
 suddenly checked himself in the very swiftest of his wild career 
 and looked at the house with a complacent smile, which seemed 
 to say — " What do you think of that ?" there ensued an explosion 
 of tumultuous homage, such as the spectators would have not 
 vouchsafed to the young conqueror of Quebec. Gallini, as far as 
 opera matters were concerned, was found to be the proper 
 man in the proper place. For four or five years he was de- 
 
446 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 spotic master of the ballet. He was resolved to be master of 
 something else. 
 
 There was then in London a Lady Elizabeth Bertie. Her 
 father, the Earl of Abingdon, then lately deceased, had, in his 
 youth, married a Signora Collino, daughter to a " Sir John Col- 
 lins." The latter knight was not English, but of English descent. 
 His son, Signor Collino, was a celebrated player of the lute in this 
 country. He was indeed the last celebrated player on that instru- 
 ment in England. 
 
 Gallini then, the very head of his profession, ranking therein 
 higher than the Abingdons did in the peerage, was rather conde- 
 scending than otherwise, when he looked upon the Earl of Abing- 
 don as his equal. The earl whom he so considered was the son 
 of the one who had espoused the Signora Collino, and Lady Eliz- 
 abeth Bertie was another child of the same marriage. When 
 Gallini the dancer, therefore, began to think of proposing for the 
 hand of that lady, he was merely thinking of marrying the niece 
 of an instrumental performer. Gallini did not think there was 
 derogation in this ; but he did think, vain, foolish fellow that he 
 was, that such a union would confer upon him the title of " my 
 lord." 
 
 Gallini was a gentleman, nevertheless, in his way — that is, both 
 in manners and morals. Proud indeed he was, as a peacock, and 
 ambitious as a " climbing-boy," desirous for ever of being at the 
 top, as speedily as possible, of every branch of his profession. He 
 was the " professor of dancing" in the Abingdon family, where his 
 agreeable person, his ready wit, his amiability, and the modesty 
 beneath which he hid a world of pretension, rendered him a general 
 favorite. He was very soon the friend of the house ; and long 
 before he had achieved that rank, he was the very particular friend 
 of Lady Elizabeth Bertie. She loved her mother's soft Italian as 
 Gallini spoke it ; and in short she loved the Italian also, language 
 and speaker. Lady and Signor became one. 
 
 When the match became publicly known the " did you evers ?" 
 that reached from box to box and echoed along the passages of 
 the opera-house were deafening. "A lady of quality marry a 
 dancer!" Why not, when maids of honor were held by royal 
 coachmen as being bad company for the said coachman's sons ? It 
 
SHAM KNIGHTS. 447 
 
 was a more suitable match than that of a lady of quality with her 
 father's footman. 
 
 Gallini happened to be in one of the lobbies soon after his mar- 
 riage, where it was being loudly discussed by some angry beauties. 
 In the midst of their ridicule of the bridegroom he approached, 
 and exclaimed, " Lustrissima, son io ! Excellent lady, I am the 
 man!" "And what does the man call himself?" asked they with 
 a giggle, and doubtless also with reference to the story of the 
 bridegroom considering himself a lord by right of his marriage 
 with a " lady" — " what does the man call himself?" " Eccelenza," 
 replied Gallini with a modest bow, " I am Signor Giovanni Gal- 
 lini, Esquire." In the midst of their laughter he turned upon his 
 heel, and went away to dress in flesh-colored tights, short tunic, 
 and spangles. 
 
 The marriage was not at first an unhappy one. There were 
 several children, but difficulties also increased much faster than 
 the family. Xot pecuniary difficulties, for Gallini was a prudent 
 man, but class difficulties. The signor found himself without a 
 properly-defined position, or what is quite as uneasy probably in 
 itself, he was above his proper position, without being able to exact 
 the homage that he thought was due to him. The brother-in-law 
 of the earl was in the eyes of his own wife, only the dancing-master 
 of their children. Considering that the lady had condescended to 
 be their mother, she might have carried the condescension a little 
 farther, and paid more respect to the father. Dissension arose, 
 and in a tour de mains family interferences rendered it incurable. 
 The quarrel was embittered, a separation ensued, and after a tran- 
 quil union of a few years, there were separate households, with 
 common ill-will in both. 
 
 He felt himself no longer a " lord," even by courtesy, but he re- 
 solved to be what many lords have tried to be, in vain, or who 
 ruined themselves by being, namely, proprietor and manager of 
 the opera-house. This was in 1786, by which time he had real- 
 ized a fortune by means of much industry, active heels, good looks, 
 capital benefits, monopoly of teaching, prudence, temperance, and 
 that economy, which extravagant people call parsimony. This 
 fortune, or rather a portion of it, he risked in the opera-house — 
 and lost it all, of course. He commenced his career with as much 
 
448 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 spirit as if he had only been the steward of another man's prop- 
 erty ; and he made engagements in Italy with such generosity and 
 patriotism, that the Pope having leisure for a while to turn his 
 thoughts from divinity to dancing, became as delighted with Gallini 
 as Pio Nono was with Fanny Cerito. We are bound to believe 
 that his holiness was in a fit of infallible enthusiasm, when he 
 dubbed Gallini, Knight of the Golden Spur. The latter returned 
 to London and wrote himself down " Sir John." Cards were just 
 come into fashion, to enable people to pay what were called 
 " visites en blanc," and " Sir John Gallini," was to be seen in 
 every house where the latter had friend or acquaintance. His 
 portrait was in all the shops, with this chivalric legend beneath it, 
 and there are yet to be seen old opera libretti with a frontispiece 
 exhibiting to an admiring public the effigies of " Sir John Gallini." 
 
 The public liked the sound, liked the man, and sanctioned the 
 title, by constantly applying it to the individual, without any men- 
 tal reserve. They had seen so many fools made knights that they 
 were glad to see a spirited man make one of himself, by applica- 
 tion of " Sir" to a papally-conferred title. The law, however, no 
 more allowed it than it did that of the Romanist official who got 
 presented at court as " Monsignore something," and whose presen- 
 tation was cancelled as soon as the pleasant trick was discovered. 
 Gallini, however, continued in the uninterrupted title until circum- 
 stances brought him, as a witness, into the presence of Lord Ken- 
 yon. When the Italian opera-dancer announced himself in the 
 hearing of that judge as Sir John Gallini, the sight of the judge 
 was what Americans call "a caution." His lordship looked as 
 disgusted as Lord Eldon used to do, when he heard an Irish 
 Romanist Bishop called by a territorial title. As far as the wrath 
 of Lord Kenyon could do it, metaphorically, the great judge un- 
 sir-John'd Sir John and chopped off his golden spurs in open 
 court. Gallini was so good-natured and popular, that the public 
 opinion would not confirm the opinion of the judge, and Sir John 
 remained Sir John, in the popular mouth, throughout the kingdom. 
 
 He was growing rich enough to buy up half the knights in the 
 country. He built the music-rooms in Hanover Square, for Bach 
 and Abel's subscription concerts. That is, he built the house; 
 and let it out to any who required any portion of it, for any pur- 
 
SHAM KNIGHTS. 449 
 
 pose of music, dancing, exhibiting, lecturing, or any other object 
 having profit in view. He lodged rather than lived in it himself, 
 lor he had reserved only a small cabinet for his own use, magnifi- 
 cently sacrificing the rest of the mansion for the use of others, 
 who paid him liberally for such use. Therewith, Sir John con- 
 tinued his old profession as teacher as well as performer, manager 
 at home as well as at the theatre; wary speculator, saving — 
 avaricious, as they said who failed to cheat him of his money on 
 faith of illusory promises, with an admirable eye for a bargain, 
 and admirable care for the result of the bargain after he had 
 concluded it. 
 
 Everything went as merrily with him as it did with Polycrates, 
 and ill-fortune and he seemed never to be acquainted, till one 
 fatal night in 1789, the Opera House was burned to the ground, 
 and the tide that had been so long flowing was now thought to be 
 on the ebb. Sir John was too heroic to be downcast, and he did 
 what many a hero would never even have thought of doing, nor, 
 indeed, any wise man either. He put down thirty thousand 
 pounds in hard cash toward the rebuilding of the opera-house, 
 sent to Italy for the best architectural plans, left no means un- 
 employed to erect a first rate theatre, and worked for that object 
 with as much integrity as if the safety of the universe depended 
 on the building of an opera-house in the Haymarket. What the 
 public lost in one night was thus being made good to them by 
 another. 
 
 Meanwhile fashion was in a deplorable state of musical desti- 
 tution. What was to become of London without an opera? 
 How could the world, the infinitesimal London world, exist with- 
 out its usual allowance of roulades and rigadoons ? Our knight 
 was just the champion to come in beneficially at such an extrem- 
 ity. He opened the little theatre in the Haymarket, and nobody 
 went to it. Fashion turned up its nose in scorn, and kept away ; 
 nay, it did worse, it acted ungratefully, and when some speculators 
 established an opera at the Pantheon, Fashion led the way from 
 the Haymarket, and a host of followers went in her train to 
 Oxford street. "I will victoriously bring her back to her old 
 house," said Sir John. The knight was gallant-hearted, but he 
 did not know that he had other foes besides Fashion. 
 
 29 
 
450 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Sir John got into difficulties through law, lawyers, and false 
 friends. He ruled as monarch at the opera-house, only to fall, 
 with ruin. But he was not a man to be dismayed. His courage, 
 zeal, and industry, were unbounded. He applied all these to 
 good purpose, and his life was not only a useful bat an honorable 
 and a prosperous one. It ended, after extending beyond the 
 ordinary allotted time of man, calmly, yet somewhat suddenly; 
 and " Sir John" Gallini died in his house in Hanover Square, 
 leaving a large fortune, the memory of some eccentricities, and a 
 good name and example, to his children. For my part, I can 
 never enter the ancient concert-rooms in Hanover Square, without 
 wishing a " Eequiescat !" to the knight of the Golden Spur, by 
 whom the edifice was constructed. 
 
 If Sir John Gallini, the dancer, could boast of having been 
 knighted by a pope, Crescentini, the singer, could boast of having 
 been knighted by an emperor. He received this honor at the 
 hands of Napoleon I. He had previously been accustomed to 
 compliments from, or in presence of, emperors. Thus, in 1804, 
 at Vienna, he sang the Ombra adorata in the character of Romeo, 
 with such exquisite grace and tenderness, that, on one occasion, 
 when he had just finished this admirable lyric piece, the whole 
 court forming part of his audience, two doves descended from 
 the clouds, bearing him a crown of laurels, while on every side, 
 garlands and flowers were flung upon the enchanted and enchant- 
 ing warbler. The Austrian Emperor paid him more honor than 
 his predecessor had ever paid to the Polish king who saved the 
 empire from the Turks. The reputation of Crescentini gained 
 for him an invitation, in 1809, to the imperial court of France. 
 He played in company with Grassini, the two representing 
 Romeo and Juliet. The characters had never been better repre- 
 sented, and Talma, who was present, is said to have wept — an 
 on dit which I do not credit, for there is not only nothing to cry 
 at in the Italian characters, but Talma himself was in no wise 
 addicted to indulgence in the melting mood, nor had he even 
 common courtesy for his own actual Juliet. But the great actor 
 was pleased, and the great emperor was delighted ; so much so, 
 that he conferred an honor on Crescentini which he would never 
 grant to Talma — made a chevalier of him. It is true that Talma 
 
SHAM KNIGHTS. 451 
 
 desired to be made a knight of the Legion on Honor ; but the 
 emperor would not place on the breast of a tragedian that cross 
 which was the reward, then, only of men who had played their 
 parts well, in real and bloody tragedies. The French tragedian 
 declined the honor that was now accorded to Crescentini, whom 
 the emperor summoned to his box, and decorated him with the 
 insignia of the knight of the Iron Crown. The singing chevalier 
 was in ecstacies. But the Juliet of the night had more cause to 
 be so, for to her, Napoleon presented a draft on the Treasury, for 
 20,000 francs. "It will be a nice little dower for one of my 
 nieces," said the ever-generous Grassini to one of her friends, on 
 the following day. Several years after this, a little niece, for 
 whom she had hitherto done little, came to her, with a contralto 
 voice, and a request for assistance. After hearing her sing, 
 Grassini exclaimed, "You have no contralto voice, and need 
 small help. You will have, with care, one of the finest mezzo- 
 sopranos in the world. Your throat will be to you a mine of 
 gold, and you may be both rich and renowned, my dear Giulietta 
 Grisi." The niece has excelled the aunt. 
 
 Knights of the shire are but sham knights now, and they origi- 
 nally sprung from a revolutionary movement. Previous to the 
 reign of Henry in. the people had no voice in the selection of 
 their legislators. In that king's reign, however, the legislators 
 were at loggerheads. Simon de Montfort, the aristocratic head 
 of a popular party, was opposed to the king ; and the great earl 
 and his friends being fearful of being outvoted in the next parlia- 
 ment, succeeded in procuring the issue of a writ in the name of 
 the king, who was then their prisoner, directing the sheriffs of 
 each county to send two knights, and the authorities in cities and 
 boroughs to send citizens and burgesses, to represent them in par- 
 liament. This was a fundamental change of a long-established 
 usage. It was, in fact, a revolution ; and the foundation at least 
 of that form of a constitution on which our present constitutional 
 substantiality has been erected. 
 
 When the king became emancipated, however, although he con- 
 tinued to summon " barons and great men," he never during his 
 reign issued a writ for the election of knights of the shire. His 
 son, Edward I., summoned the greater and lesser barons, or his 
 
452 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 tenants in chief, according to the old usage. This he did during, 
 at least, seven years of his reign. The last were not barons, but 
 they were summoned as " barons' peers, and all these attended in 
 their own persons," and not as representatives of the people. In 
 the reign of John, indeed, the people's voice had been heard, but 
 it may be stated generally, that until the forty-ninth of Henry III., 
 the constituent parts of the great council of the nation was com- 
 posed solely of the archbishops and bishops, the earls, barons, and 
 tenants in capite. 
 
 It is a singular fact that, in the early elections, the knights of 
 the shire were elected by universal suffrage ; and so, indeed, they 
 are now, in a certain way, as I shall explain, after citing the fol- 
 lowing passage from Hallam's State of Europe during the Middle 
 Ages : " Whoever may have been the original voters for county 
 representatives, the first statute that regulates their election, so far 
 from limiting the privilege to tenants in capite, appears to place it 
 upon a very large and democratical foundation. For (as I rather 
 conceive, though not without much hesitation) not only all free- 
 holders, but all persons whatever present at the county court, were 
 declared, or rendered, capable of voting for the knight of their 
 shire. Such at least seems to be the inference from the expres- 
 sions of 7 Henry IV., c. 15, ' all who are there present, as well suitors 
 duly summoned for that cause, as others.' And this acquires some 
 degree of confirmation from the later statute 8 Henry VI., c. 7, 
 which, reciting that 'elections of knights of shires have now, of 
 late, been made by very great, outrageous, and excessive number 
 of people dwelling within the same counties, of the which most 
 were people of small substance and of no value,' confines the elec- 
 tive franchise to freeholders of lands or tenements to the value of 
 forty shillings." 
 
 The original summons to freeholders was, without doubt, by 
 general proclamation, so that, as Mr. Hallam remarks, " it is not 
 easy to see what difference there could be between summoned and 
 unsummoned suitors. And if the words are supposed to glance at 
 the private summonses to a few friends, by means of which the 
 sheriffs were accustomed to procure a clandestine election, one can 
 hardly imagine that such persons would be styled ' duly summoned.' 
 It is not unlikely, however," adds Mr. Hallam, " that these large 
 
SHAM KNIGHTS. 453 
 
 expressions were inadvertently used, and that they led to that in- 
 undation of voters without property which rendered the subsequent 
 act of Henry VI. necessary. That of Henry IV. had itself been 
 occasioned by an opposite evil, the close election of knights by a 
 few persons in the name of the county." 
 
 The same writer proceeds to observe that the consequence of 
 the statute of Henry IV. was not to let in too many voters, or to 
 render election tumultuous in the largest of English counties, 
 whatever it might be in others. Prynne, it appears, published 
 some singular indentures for the county of York, proceeding from 
 the sheriffs, during the intervals between the acts of the fourth 
 and sixth Henry. These " are selected by a few persons calling 
 themselves the attorneys of some peers and ladies, who, as far as 
 it appears, had solely returned the knights of that shire. What 
 degree of weight," says Mr. Hallam, "these anomalous returns 
 ought to possess, I leave to the reader." 
 
 I have said that the universal suffrage system in the election of 
 these knights (and indeed of others) as far as it can be carried 
 out, in allowing all persons present to have a voice, is still strictly 
 in force. Appeal is made to the popular assembly as to the choice 
 of a candidate. The decision is duly announced by the highest 
 authority present, and then the rejected candidate may, if he thinks 
 proper, appeal from the people present to those who are legally 
 qualified to vote. The first ceremony is now a very unnecessary 
 one, but it is, without doubt, the relic of a time when observation 
 of it bore therewith a serious meaning. 
 
 From parliament to the university is no very wide step. Sir 
 Hugh Evans and Sir Oliver Martext were individuals who, with 
 their titles, are very familiar to the most of us. The knightly 
 title thus given to clergymen, was not so much by way of courtesy, 
 as for the sake of distinction. It was " worn" by Bachelors of 
 Arts, otherwise " Domini," to distinguish them from the Masters 
 of Arts, or " Magistri." Properly speaking, the title was a local 
 one, and ought not to have been used beyond the bounds of the 
 University: but as now-a-days with the case of "captains" of 
 packet-boats, they are also captains at home ; so, in old times, the 
 " Sir" of the University was Sir Something Somebody, everywhere. 
 
 We laugh at the French for so often describing our knights only 
 
454 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 by their surnames, as " Sir Jones." This, however, is the old 
 English form as it was used at Cambridge. The Cambridge " Sirs" 
 were addressed by Christian and surname in their livings, and in 
 documents connected therewith. This practice continued till the 
 title itself was abandoned some time after the Reformation. The 
 old custom was occasionally revived by the elderly stagers, much 
 to the astonishment of younger hearers. Thus when Bishop 
 Mawson of Llandaff was on one occasion at court, he encountered 
 there a reverend Bachelor of Arts, Fellow of Bene't College, and 
 subsequently Dean of Salisbury. His name was Greene. The 
 bishop, as soon as he saw the " bachelor" enter the drawing-room, 
 accosted him loudly in this manner: "How do you do, Sir 
 Greene? When did you leave college, Sir Greene?" Mr. 
 Greene observing the astonishment of those around him, took 
 upon himself to explain that the bishop was only using an ob- 
 solete formula of bygone times. The most recent courtesy title 
 that I can remember, was one given to a blind beggar who was 
 very well known in the vicinity of Trinity College, Dublin, where, 
 indeed, he had been a student some five-and-thirty years ago. 
 He was invariably styled " Domine John," and he could return a 
 suitable answer in good Latin, to the query, Quo modo vales'? — 
 or to any other query. 
 
 " Vale !" is indeed what I ought to utter to the courteous reader ; 
 nor will I detain him longer — supposing he has kindly borne with 
 me thus far — than with one brief chapter more, which, being mis- 
 cellaneous, I may not inaptly call " Pieces of Armor." 
 
PIECES OF ARMOR. 455 
 
 PIECES OF ARMOR. 
 
 The word Pieces reminds me of a curious theatrical illustration 
 of Macedonian chivalry. When Barry used to play Alexander 
 the Great, he made a grand spectacle of his chariot entry. But 
 it was highly absurd, nevertheless. When he descended from the 
 vehicle, his attendant knights, bareheaded and unarmed, placed 
 their hands upon it, and in an instant it went to pieces, like a 
 trick in a pantomime, and left in every warrior's possession, 
 swords, javelins, shields, and helmets, supplied by the spokes of 
 the wheels, the poles, the body of the car and its ornaments. This 
 feat was very highly applauded by our intellectual sires. 
 
 This act, however, was hardly more unnatural than the sayings 
 of some real chevaliers, particularly those of Spain. 
 
 Among the Spanish Rhodomontades chronicled by Brantome, 
 we find none that have not reference to personal valor. There 
 is the choleric swordsman who walks the street without his weap- 
 on, for the good reason that his hand is so ready to fly to his 
 sword, if the wind but blow on him too roughly, he is never able 
 to walk out armed without taking two or three lives. " I will 
 hoist you so high," says another Spanish cavalier to his antago- 
 nist, " that you will die before you can reach the earth again." It 
 was a fellow of the same kidney who used not only to decapitate 
 dozens of Moorish heads every morning, but was wont afterward 
 to fling them so high into the air, that they were half-devoured by 
 flies before they came down again. Another, boasting of his feats 
 in a naval battle, quietly remarked, that making a thrust down- 
 ward with his sword, it passed through the sea, penetrated the 
 infernal region, and sliced off a portion of the moustache of Pluto ! 
 " If that man be a friend of yours," said a cavalier, to a compan- 
 ion, referring 1 at the same time to a swordsman with whom the 
 
456 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIK DAYS. 
 
 cavalier had had angry words, " pray for his soul, for he has quar- 
 relled with me." The self-complacency also of the following is 
 not amiss. A Spanish captain in Paris, saw the haughty cheva- 
 lier d'Ambres pass by him. " Is he," said the Spaniard, u as val- 
 iant as he is proud ?" The reply was in the affirmative. " Then," 
 remarked the Iberian, " he is almost as. good a man as myself." 
 We hear of another, less gallant, perhaps, than brave, who made 
 it a great favor to ladies when he put off a combat at their request, 
 and passed a pleasant hour with them, in place of knocking out 
 brains upon the field. It was a knight of similar notions who cud- 
 gelled his page for boasting of the knight's valor. " If thou dost 
 such foolish things, Sir Knave," said the doughty gentleman, " the 
 whole female sex will perish of love for me, and I shall have no 
 leisure left to take towns and rout armies." This was a full-devel- 
 oped knight. It was probably his youthful squire who remarked, 
 when some one expressed surprise that one so young had mus- 
 taches of such unusual length. "They sprung up," said the 
 young soldier, " under the smoke of cannon ; they grew thus quick- 
 ly under the same influences." 
 
 Some of the old Spanish cavaliers used to maintain that their 
 very beauty dazzled their enemies. However this may have 
 been, it is a fact that the beauty of Galeozo Maria, Duke of Milan, 
 was sufficiently striking to save him for a while, against the dag- 
 gers of conspirators. One of these, named Lampugnano, longed 
 to slay him, but did not dare. He was, nevertheless, resolved ; 
 and he employed a singular means for giving himself courage. 
 He procured a faithful portrait of the handsome duke, and every 
 time he passed it, he looked steadfastly at the brilliant eyes and 
 graceful features, and then plunged his dagger into the canvass. 
 He continued this practice until he found himself enabled to look 
 the living duke in the face without being dazzled by his beauty ; 
 and this done, he dealt his blow steadily, and destroyed his great 
 and graceful foe. 
 
 It has often been asserted that there have been few cavaliers 
 who have carried on war with more indifference and cruelty than 
 the Spanish knights. But war in all times and in all ages has in- 
 duced the first, at least, if not the last. I may cite among what 
 may be called the more recent instances, one that would hardly 
 
PIECES OF ARMOR. 457 
 
 have occurred, even at Sebastopol. It is in reference to Schom- 
 berg's army at Dimdalk. " The survivors," says Leland, " used the 
 bodies of their dead comrades for seats or shelter ; and when these 
 were carried to interment, murmured at being deprived of their 
 conveniences." "While touching upon Irish matters, I will avail 
 myself of the opportunity to notice that Irish knights were some- 
 times called " iron knee." u eagle knee," and " black knee," from 
 the armor which was especially needed for that part of the body, 
 the Irish with their dreadful battle-axes making the sorest stroke 
 on the thigh of the horseman. The Irish appellation of the White 
 Knight, was given to the heir of a family wherein gray hairs were 
 hereditary. The Irish knights, it may be observed, were gener- 
 ally more religious than the Spanish. The latter were too ready 
 to ascribe every success to their own might, and not to a greater 
 hand. Even in the case of St. Lawrence, calmly roasting to death 
 on his gridiron, the proud Spaniards would not have this patience 
 ascribed to the grace of God, but only to the true Spanish valor. 
 While speaking of the burning of St. Lawrence, I will add that 
 St. Pierre quotes Plutarch in stating, that when the Roman burn- 
 ers had to reduce to ashes the bodies of several knights and ladies, 
 they used to place one female body among eight or ten males, 
 fancying that with this amalgamation they would burn better. 
 The author of the " Harmonies of Nature" makes upon this the 
 truly characteristic comment, that the Roman fashion was founded 
 on the notion, that " the fire of love still burned within us after 
 death." 
 
 Reverting, for a moment, to the Spaniards, I may notice a 
 fashion among them which is worth mentioning. When a Spanish 
 cavalier entered the presence of a Spanish queen, accompanied by 
 his lady, he did not unbonnet to his sovereign. He was supposed 
 to be so engrossed by his mistress as to forget even the courtesies 
 of loyalty. ■ 
 
 Brantome, on the other hand, notices kingly courtesy toward a 
 subject. When describing the battle-acts of the famous M. de 
 Thorannes, he states that the King in acknowledgment that the 
 battle of Rentz had been gained chiefly through his courage, took 
 the collar of his own order from his neck, and placed it on that of 
 the gallant soldier. This was a most unusual act, according to 
 
458 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 the showing of Brantome, but probably not the first time of a sim- 
 ilar occurrence. The author just named complains in piteous 
 terms that, in his time and previously, the honors of chivalry had 
 been bestowed for anything but knightly deeds. They were gained 
 by favor, influence, or money. Some set their wives to exert their 
 fascination oyer the Christian sovereign, and purchase the honor 
 at any cost. " M. de Chateaubriand gave a house and an estate for 
 the order of St. Michael. Ultimately, it was conferred on single 
 captains of infantry, to the great disgust of the better-born gentle- 
 men who had paid dearly for the honor. Brantome declares that 
 he knew many who had never been half a dozen leagues from 
 their houses, who wore the insignia of the order, and who talked 
 of the taking of Loches, as if they had really been present. He 
 angrily adds, that even lawyers were made knights, stripping 
 themselves of their gowns, and clapping swords on their thighs. 
 He appears especially annoyed that the celebrated Montaigne 
 should have followed a similar example: and he adds with a 
 malicious exultation, that the sword did not become him half so 
 well as the pen. 
 
 One French Marquis was persecuted by his neighbors to get 
 orders for them, as if they were applying for orders for the theatre. 
 He obtained them with such facility, that he even made a knight 
 of his house-steward, and forced the poor man to go to market in 
 his collar, to the infinite wounding of his modesty. It was, how- 
 ever, one rule of the order that the collar should never, under any 
 pretence whatever, be taken from the neck. The Court had very 
 unsavory names for these mushroom-knights ; and Brantome gives 
 us some idea of the aristocratic feeling when he recounts, with a 
 horror he does not seek to disguise, that the order was sold to an 
 old Huguenot gentleman, for the small sum of five hundred crowns. 
 A cheap bargain for the new knight, seeing that membership in 
 the order carried with it exemption from taxation. Luckily for 
 the Huguenot he died just in time to save himself from being dis- 
 graced. Some gentlemanly ruffians had agreed to attack this 
 "homme de peu," as Brantome calls him, to pull the order from 
 his neck, to give him a cudgelling, and to threaten him with an- 
 other, whenever he dared to wear the knightly insignia. 
 
 Brantome wonders the more at what he calls the abuse of the 
 
PIECES OF ARMOR. 459 
 
 order as it had been instituted by Louis XL, on the ground that 
 the old order of the Star founded by King John, in memory of 
 the star which guided the Kings to the Cradle of Divinity, had 
 become so common, that the silver star of the order was to be 
 seen in the hat and on the mantle of half the men in France. 
 Louis XL, in abolishing the order, conferred its insignia as an or- 
 nament of dress, upon the Chevaliers de Guet, or gentlemen of 
 the watch, who looked to the safety of Paris when the stars were 
 shining, or that it was the hour for them to do so. It was an un- 
 derstood thing with all these orders that if a knight went into the 
 service of an enemy to the sovereign head of the order, the knight 
 was bound to divest himself of the insignia and transmit the same 
 directly to the King. 
 
 Before the dignity of the order was humbled, the members took 
 pride in displaying it even in battle ; although they were put to 
 high ransom, if captured. Some prudent knights, of as much dis- 
 cretion as valor, would occasionally conceal the insignia before 
 going into fight ; but they were mercilessly ridiculed, when the 
 absence of the decoration testified to the presence of their discre- 
 tion. In the earlier years of its formation, a man could with more 
 facility obtain a nomination to be captain of the body-guard than 
 the collar of the order of St. Michael. Louis XL himself showed 
 a wise reluctance to making the order common, and although he 
 fixed the number of knights at six-and-thirty, he would only, at 
 first, appoint fifteen. Under succeeding kings the order swelled to 
 limitless numbers, until at last, no one would accept it, even when 
 forced upon them. One great personage, indeed, sought and ob- 
 tained it. He was severely rallied for his bad ambition ; but as 
 he remarked, the emblems of the order would look well, engraved 
 upon his plate, and the embroidered mantle would make an admi- 
 rable covering for his mule. 
 
 This sort of satire upon chivalry reminds me that a knight could 
 unknight himself, when so inclined. An instance occurs in a case 
 connected with Jeanne Dare. The chevaliers of the Dauphin's 
 army had no belief in the inspiration of the Maid of Orleans, until 
 success crowned her early efforts. The female knight, if one may 
 so speak, on the other hand, had no measure whatever of respect, 
 either for knight or friar, who appeared to doubt her heavenly 
 
460 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 mission. I may just notice, by the way, that a " board" of seven 
 theologians assembled to consider her claims, and examine the 
 maiden herself. One of the members, a "brother Seguin," a 
 Limousin, who spoke with the strong and disagreeable accent of 
 his birthplace, asked Jeanne in what sort of idiom she had been 
 addressed by the divine voice, by which she professed to be guided : 
 " In a much better idiom than you use yourself," answered the 
 pert young lady, " or I should have put no trust in it." Here, by 
 the way, we have, perhaps, the origin of the old story of the stam- 
 mering gentleman who asked the boy if his m — m — magpie could 
 speak ? " Better than you," said the boy, " or I would wring his 
 neck off." But to resume. Jeanne was quite as nonchalante to 
 the knights, as she was flippant to the friars. She expressly ex- 
 hibits this characteristic, in the first council held in her presence 
 within Orleans, when she urged immediate offensive measures, 
 contrary to the opinion of the knights themselves. One of the 
 latter, the Sire de Gamache, was so chafed by the pertinacity of 
 the Pucelle, that, at last, springing to his feet, he exclaimed : — 
 " Since noble princes listen for a moment to the nonsense of a low- 
 bred hussy like this, rather than to the arguments of a chevalier 
 such as I am, I will not trouble myself to give any more opinions. 
 In proper time and place, my good sword will speak, and per- 
 chance I may prevail; but the king and my honor so will it. 
 Henceforward, I furl and pull down my banner ; from this moment 
 I am only a simple 'squire ; but I would much rather have a noble 
 man for master, than serve under a wench who, perhaps, has been 
 a — one really does not know what!" and with these words, he 
 rolled up his banner, placed the same in the hands of Dunois, and 
 walked out of the tent, not Sir John de Gamache, but plain John 
 Gamache, Esquire. 
 
 A curious result followed. The first attack on the bastion of 
 Tourelles failed, and Jeanne was slightly wounded and unhorsed. 
 Gamache was near, and he dismounted and offered her his steed. ' 
 " Jump up," cried the good fellow, " you are a gallant lass, and I 
 was wrong in calling you ugly names. I will serve and obey you 
 right willingly." "And you," said Jeanne, "are as hearty a 
 knight as ever thwacked men or helped a maid." And so were 
 they reconciled, and remained good friends to the end; — which 
 was not long in coming. 
 
PIECES OF ARMOR. 461 
 
 Knights, irregularly made so, were unknighted with little cere- 
 mony. Although each duly dubbed knight could confer the same 
 honor on any deserving such distinction, it was necessary that the 
 individual about to be so honored should be a gentleman. In 
 France, if this rule was infringed, the unlucky knight had his 
 spurs hacked off, on a dunghill. Occasionally the unknighted 
 person was fined. It may be observed, however, that the king 
 might make a knight of a villain, if the sovereign were so minded. 
 That is, a king could raise any of his own subjects to the rank, if 
 he thought proper. Not so with sovereigns and persons not their 
 subjects. The Emperor Sigismund, for instance, when visiting 
 Paris, in 1415, knighted a person who was below the rank of 
 gentleman. The French people were indignant at this, as an act 
 of sovereignty in another monarch's dominions. If this chevalier 
 was not unknighted, the reason, probably, was that the Emperor 
 might not be offended. It is said, that in Naples it has never 
 been necessary for a man to be noble, a gentleman in fact, in order 
 to be a knight. Tins may readily be credited. In Naples the 
 fact of a man being a brute beast does not incapacitate him from 
 exercising the office even of a king. 
 
 After all, there appears to have been some uncertainty in the 
 observance of the law on the subject. In England the custom 
 which allowed knights to dub other knights, very soon fell into 
 disuse, so that there are fewer examples of unknighting in this 
 country than in France, where the custom prevailed down to the 
 middle of the sixteenth century ; and its abuses, of course, ren- 
 dered the unmaking of illegally constituted knights, if not common, 
 at least an occasional occurrence. Henry III., as I have said in 
 another page, summoned tenants in capite to receive knighthood 
 from himself, and authorized tenants of mesne lords to receive the 
 honor from whom they pleased. But there must have been con- 
 siderable disrating of these last distinguished persons, or such an 
 abuse of creation, so to speak, that the privilege was stopped, 
 except by special permission of the king. Some places, in 
 France, however, declared that they held a prescriptive right 
 for burgesses to receive knighthood at the hands of noblemen, 
 without the royal permission. Hallam, quoting Villaret, says 
 that burgesses, in the great commercial towns, were considered as 
 
462 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 of a superior class to the roturiers, and possessed a kind of demi- 
 nobility. 
 
 Ridiculous as modern knights, whether of town or country, 
 have been made upon the stage, it is indisputable that in some 
 cases the ridicule has not been what painters call " loaded," and 
 the reality was in itself a caricature. I have read somewhere of 
 one city gentleman, who was knighted during his shrievalty, and 
 who forthwith emancipated himself a little from business, and 
 aired his chivalrous " sir" in gay company. He was once, how- 
 ever, sorely puzzled on receiving a note of invitation from a lady 
 whose soirees were the especial delight of her guests, and whose 
 note ended with the initials, so absurdly placed at the termination 
 of an invitation in English. R. S. V. P., "reponse, s'il vous 
 plait." The newly-coined knight, after allusions to the pressure 
 of business, accepted the hospitality offered him through the note, 
 remarking at the same time, that " all work and no play made 
 Jack a dull boy," and that he knew nothing more to his taste, after 
 a long day's application, than what her ladyship's note appeared to 
 present to him in the initials at its foot ; namely, a Regular Small 
 Vist Party. If this anecdote be not apocryphal, I suspect that 
 the knight's remark may have sprung less from ignorance than 
 humor, and that his reading of the initials was meant as a censure 
 upon an absurd fashion. 
 
 While speaking of city knights at home, and their humor, I 
 will avail myself of the opportunity to give an instance of wit in 
 a poor chevalier of the city of Paris, whose whole wealth consist- 
 ed of a few unproductive acres near the capital, and whose son 
 had just married a wealthy heiress of very low degree. u II fait 
 bien," said the old knight, " il fume mes terres !" 
 
 This was hardly courteous ; but elevated courtesy was never 
 wanting among true knights, in the very rudest of times. 
 
 Strange contrasts of feeling were sometimes exhibited. Thus, 
 when the English were besieging Orleans, they grew suddenly 
 tired of their bloody work, on Christmas-day, and asked for a 
 truce while they ate their pudding. The request was not only 
 readily granted, but the French knights, hearing that the day was 
 dull in the English camp, obtained the permission of the bastard 
 Dunois, to send over some musicians to enliven the melancholy 
 
PIECES OF ARMOR. 463 
 
 leaguers. The band played lustily during the whole period of the 
 truce, but the last notes had scarcely ceased, and the " Godons" 
 as Jeanne Dare rather corruptively called our great sires, who 
 were too much addicted to swearing, had hardly ceased uttering 
 their thanks for the musical entertainment, when their cannonade 
 was renewed by the besiegers with such vigor, that the French 
 knights swore — harmony had never before been paid in such 
 hard coin. 
 
 There was little ill-feeling consequent upon this. The pages 
 in either army were allowed to amuse themselves by slaying each 
 other in a two days* duel, presided over by the respective generals- 
 in-chief. This was chivalrous proof that neither party bore malice, 
 and they beat out each other's brains on the occasion, in testimony 
 of universal good-will, with as much delighted feeling as if they 
 had all been Irishmen. A further proof of absence of individual 
 rancor may be seen in the fact, that Suffolk sent a gift of pigs, 
 dates, and raisins, for the dessert of Dunois ; and the latter ac- 
 knowledged the present by forwarding to the English general some 
 fur for his robe — Suffolk having complained bitterly of the cold 
 of that memorable February, 1429. 
 
 This reminds me of a similar interchange of courtesy between 
 French and English antagonists, in later times. When brave 
 Elliot was defending Gibraltar from gallant Crillon, the former, 
 who never ate meat, suffered greatly (as did his scurvy-stricken 
 men) from a scarcity of vegetables. Crillion had more than he 
 wanted, and he sent of his superabundance, most liberally, to the 
 foe whom he respected. A whole cart-load of carrots and compli- 
 ments made general and garrison glad, and Elliot was as profuse 
 in his gratitude as he was bound to be. It may be remembered 
 that similar exchanges of courtesy and creature-comforts took 
 place at Sebastopol. Sir Edmund Lyons sent Admiral Na- 
 chimoff a fat buck, a gift which the large-minded hero of the 
 Sinope butchery repaid by a hard Dutch cheese. It may be 
 said too that the buck would have been more appropriately 
 sent to the half-starved English heroes who were rotting in the 
 trenches. 
 
 There were some other naval knights of old, touching whom I 
 may here say a word. 
 
464 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 The history of the sea-kings or sea-knights, whose noble voca- 
 tion it was to descend from the north with little but ballast in the 
 holds of their vessels, and to return thither heavily laden with 
 plunder and glory, is tolerably well known to the majority of 
 readers. The story of the Flemish pirates, who, nearly eight 
 centuries ago, carried terror to, and brought spoil from the Mediter- 
 ranean, is far less familinr. This story is well illustrated in the 
 " Biographie des hommes remarquables de la Flandres Occiden- 
 tale," of whom the authors are M. Octave Delepierre, the accom- 
 plished Belgian consul in this country, and Mr. Carton. 
 
 The period is a warm June evening of the year 1097. Off the 
 coast of Cilicia, two large vessels, belonging to the Emperor 
 Alexis Comnenus, and manned by Constantinopolitan Greeks, 
 were surrounded and attacked by ten fast-sailing but small vessels, 
 belonging to the dreaded " Greek Pirates," whose name alone 
 brought terror with the sound. On the prow of each light bark 
 was a rudely sculptured figure of a lion ; from the summit of the 
 tall mast was displayed a green pennant, which was never hauled 
 down, for the good reason that the pirates never attacked but where 
 success seemed certain ; and if defeat menaced them they could 
 easily find safety in flight 
 
 There was scarcely a place on the coast which they had not, 
 for ten years past, visited ; and many merchants purchased ex- 
 emption from attack by paying a species of very liberal black 
 mail. It was beneath the dignity of an emperor to buy safety 
 from piratical rovers, and they had little respect for his vessels, in 
 consequence. 
 
 M. Delepierre informs us that these Flemish pirates had been, 
 originally, merchants, but that they thought it more profitable to 
 steal than to barter ; and found " skimming the seas," as the phrase 
 went, far more lucrative than living by the dull precepts of trade. 
 Their three principal chiefs were Zegher of Bruges, Gheraert of 
 Courtrai, and Wimer (whose name still lives in Wimereux) of 
 Boulogne. The force they had under them amounted to four 
 hundred intrepid men, who were at once sailors and soldiers, and 
 who are described as being so skilful that they could with one 
 hand steer the ship, and with the other wield the boarding-hatch- 
 et. It will be seen that our Laureate's exhortation to knavish 
 
PIECES OF ARMOR. 465 
 
 tradesmen to lay down their weights and their measures, and to 
 mend their ways by taking to the vocation of arms, had here a 
 practical illustration. In the present case, M. Delepierre suggests 
 that the pirates were, probably, not less honest men than the 
 Greeks. The latter were ostensibly on their way to succor the 
 Crusaders, but Alexis was a double dealer, and occasionally de- 
 spatched forces against the infidel, which forces turned aside to as- 
 sault those Christian neighbors of his, who were too powerful to 
 be pleasant in such a vicinity, and to get rid of whom was to be 
 devoutly desired, and, at any cost, accomplished. The foreign 
 policy of Alexis was as villanously void of principle as that 
 of any government under a more advanced period of Christian 
 civilization. 
 
 The Greek crews had been summoned to surrender. Gheraert 
 of Courtrai had called to them to that effect through his leathern 
 speaking-trumpet. He probably knew little of Greek, and the 
 Orientals could not have comprehended his Flemish. We may 
 conclude that his summons was in a macaronic sort of style ; in 
 which two languages were used to convey one idea. The Hellenes 
 replied to it, however it may have sounded, by hurling at the 
 Flemings a very hurricane of stones. 
 
 The stout men from Flanders were not long in answering in 
 their turn. " They put into play," says M. Delepierre, " their 
 mechanical slings. These were large baskets full of stones 
 fastened to the end of an elevated balance, the motion of which 
 flung them to some distance. They had other means of destruc- 
 tion, in enormous engines, which hurled beams covered with iron, 
 and monster arrows wrapped in flaming rosin. With scythe-blades 
 attached to long poles, they severed the ropes and destroyed the 
 sails, and then flinging out their grapnels they made off with 
 their prize." 
 
 To this point the present battle had not yet come. It had 
 lasted an hour, the Greeks had suffered most by the means of 
 attack above noticed ; and they had inflicted but trifling injury, 
 comparatively, upon the men of the green pennant. They re- 
 fused, however, to surrender, but prepared to fly. Wimer saw 
 the preparatory movement, and, in a loud voice, exclaimed : — " A 
 dozen divers !" 
 
 30 
 
466 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 Twelve men, quitting their posts, leaped over the side of the 
 boat, carrying enormous tarieres (augers) with them. They disap- 
 peared beneath the waves ; appeared for a moment or two again 
 above the surface, in order to draw breath ; once more plunged 
 downward ; and, finally, at the end of ten minutes, climbed again 
 into their small vessel, exclaiming, " Master, it is done !" 
 
 The twelve divers had established twelve formidable leaks in 
 the larger of the two Greek vessels, and as it began to sink, the 
 crew agreed to surrender. The Green Pirates seized all that 
 was on board that and the other ship. In the latter, stripped of 
 everything of value, they allowed the two Greek crews to sail 
 away ; and then proceeded toward the coast with their booty, con- 
 sisting of rich stuffs, provisions and arms. There was far more 
 than they needed for their own wants ; and so, for the nonce, they 
 turned traders again. They sold at a good price what they had 
 unscrupulously stolen, and the profits realized by the Flemish ro- 
 vers were enough to make all honest, but poor traders, desire to 
 turn corsairs. 
 
 Zegher ascended the Cydnus, in order to pay a professional 
 visit to Tarsis, and was not a little surprised, on approaching the 
 city, to see formidable preparations made to resist him. On draw- 
 ing closer, however, the pirate-leader found that Tarsis was in pos- 
 session of the army of Flemish crusaders under the great Count 
 Baldwin ; and each party welcomed the other with joyous shouts 
 of " Long live Flanders !" " Long live the Lion !" The arrival 
 of the fleet was of the greatest advantage to the Flemings, 
 who, though they had suffered less than the French, Italian, 
 and German legions, by whom they had been preceded, and 
 had been progressively triumphing since they had landed, need- 
 ed succors both of men and material, and lo ! here were the 
 Green Pirates ready to furnish both, for a consideration. There 
 was abundance of feasting that night, and a very heavy sermon in 
 the morning. 
 
 Baldwin was himself the preacher. His style was a mixture 
 of exhorting with the threatening ; and he was so little compli- 
 mentary as to tell the Green pirates that they were nothing better 
 than brigands, and were undoubtedly on their way to the devil. 
 He added that he would have treated them as people of such a 
 
PIECES OF ARMOR. 467 
 
 character, going such a way, only that they were his countrymen. 
 And then he wept at the very thought of their present demerits, 
 and their possible destiny. This practice of weeping was inherit- 
 ed by knights from the old Greek heroes, and a chevalier in com- 
 plete steel might shed tears till his suit was rusty, without the 
 slightest shame. The exhortation continued without appearing to 
 make any sensible impression upon the rovers. Baldwin, how- 
 ever, pointed his address at the end, with an observation that if 
 they would join him in his career of arms, he would give them 
 lands that should make lords of the whole of them. Upon this 
 observation the Green Pirates, with a little modest allusion to their 
 unworthiness, declared that they were eager, one and all, to turn 
 crusaders. 
 
 Each man attached a small green cross, in cloth, to the top 
 of his sleeve ; and joyfully followed Baldwin to the field. The 
 count was no more able to keep his word than a recruiting 
 sergeant who promises a recruit that he shall be made a field- 
 marshal. Nor was he to blame, for the greater part of his new 
 allies perished ; but enough were left to make a score of very 
 doughty knights. 
 
 Admirable sailors were the Northmen, especially the Anglo- 
 NormanSj whether with respect to manoeuvring or courage. 
 " Close quarters" formed the condition on which they liked to be 
 with an enemy. " Grapple and board" was their system as soon 
 as they had created a little confusion among the enemy with 
 their cross-bows and slings. The "mariners" in those days 
 fought in armor, with heavy swords, spears, and battle-axes. 
 They were well furnished too with bags of quick-lime, the 
 contents of which they flung into the eyes of their adversaries, 
 when they could get to windward of them, an end which they 
 always had in view. 
 
 The first regular naval battle fought between the English and 
 the French was conducted by the former after the fashion above 
 mentioned. It was during the reign of Henry III., when Louis 
 of France, by the destruction of his army at " the fair of Lincoln," 
 was shut up in London, and depended on the exertions of his 
 wife, Blanche of Castile, for his release. Blanche sent eighty 
 large ships, besides many smaller vessels, from Calais, under a 
 
468 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIK DAYS. 
 
 piratical commander, the celebrated Eustace Le Moine. Hubert 
 de Burgh had only forty vessels wherewith to proceed against this 
 overwhelming force ; and on board of these the English knights 
 proceeded, under protest and with a world of grumbling, at being 
 compelled to fight on the waters when they had no sea-legs, and 
 were accustomed to no battles but those on land. No heed was 
 taken of protest or grumbling; the forty vessels were loosened 
 from their moorings, and away went the reluctant but strong- 
 boned land sailors, all in shirts of mail in place of Guernsey jack- 
 ets, to contend for the first time with a French fleet. The English 
 ships contrived to get between Calais and the enemy's vessels, and 
 fell upon the latter in their rear. The English bowmen handled 
 their favorite weapons with a deadly dexterity ; and as soon as 
 their vessels were made fast to those of the French, out flew the 
 quick-lime, flung by the English, and carried by the wind into the 
 faces of the French. While these were stamping with pain, 
 screwing their eyes up to look through the lime-dust, or turning 
 their backs to avoid it, the English boarders made a rush, cut 
 down men, hacked away the rigging, and so utterly defeated the 
 French, unaccustomed to this sort of fighting, that of the great 
 French fleet only fifteen vessels escaped. The number of Gallic 
 knights and inferior officers captured was very large. As for 
 Eustace le Moine, he had slunk below to avoid the lime-powder 
 and battle-axes. He was seized by Eichard Fitzroy, King John's 
 illegitimate son. Fitzroy refused to give the recreant quarter, but 
 hewed off his head on the taffrail, and sent it from town to town 
 through England as a pleasant exhibition. 
 
 Errant knights in quest of adventure, and anxious to secure re- 
 nown, less frequently visited England than other countries. They 
 appear to have had a mortal dislike of the sea. This dislike was 
 common to the bravest and greatest among them. I may cite, as 
 an instance, the case of the Duke of Orleans and his cavaliers, 
 captured at Agincourt, and brought over to England, from Calais 
 to Dover, by the gallant and lucky Henry. The latter walked 
 the deck during a heavy ground swell, with as much enjoyment as 
 though he had been to the matter born. The French prince and 
 his knights, on the other hand, were as ignorant of the sea and as 
 uneasy upon it as a modern English Lord of the Admiralty. They 
 
PIECES OP ARMOR. 469 
 
 suffered horribly, and one and all declared that they would rather 
 be daily exposed to the peril of battle, than cross the straits of 
 Dover once a month. 
 
 Nevertheless, stray knights did occasionally brave the dangers 
 of the deep, and step ashore on the coast of Kent with a challenge 
 to all comers of equal degree. We have an instance of this sort 
 of adventurer in Jacques de Lelaing, whose story is told in this 
 volume. We hear of another in the nameless knight of Aragon, 
 who in the reign of Henry V. set all London and many a provin- 
 cial baronial hall in commotion by his published invitation to all 
 knights of the same rank as himself, to come and give him a taste 
 of their quality in a bout at two-edged sword, axe, and dagger. 
 
 The challenge was promptly accepted by stout Sir Robert Cary. 
 Sir Robert was a poor knight, with nothing to lose, for his sire 
 had lost all he possessed before Sir Robert's time, by being faith- 
 ful to poor Richard II., a virtue, for the exercise of which he was 
 punished by forfeiture of his estates, decreed against him by Henry 
 IV. The disinherited knight, therefore, had a chance of winning 
 land as well as honor, should he subdue the arrogant Aragonese. 
 The two met in the then fashionable district of Smithfield, and the 
 Devonshire swordsman, after a bloody and long-enduring fight, so 
 thoroughly vanquished the Spaniard, that the king, who delighted 
 in such encounters, and who was especially glad when victory was 
 won by the side he most favored, not only restored to Sir Robert 
 the forfeited paternal estates, but he also authorized him to wear 
 the arms of the much-bruised knight from beyond sea. 
 
 At a later period knightly estates went in the service of another 
 king. Sir Henry Cary risked life and property in the cause of 
 Charles I., and while he preserved the first, he was deprived of 
 nearly all the latter. The head of the family, no longer a knight, 
 if I remember rightly, was residing at Torr Bay, when the Old 
 Chevalier was about to attempt to regain the three crowns which, 
 according to no less than a French archiepiscopal authority, 
 James II. had been simple enough to lose for one mass. At this 
 period, the English king that would be, sent the Duke of Ormond 
 to the head of the Cary family, and not only conveyed to him an 
 assurance that his services to the Stuarts had not been forgotten ; 
 but, by way of guarantee that future, and perhaps more than 
 
470 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS 
 
 knightly honors should be heaped upon him, in case of victory de- 
 claring for the Stuart cause, the chevalier sent him the portraits 
 of James II., and of that monarch's wife, Mary of Modena. Sim- 
 ilar portraits are to be found among the cherished treasures of 
 many English families ; and these are supposed to have been origi- 
 nally distributed among various families, as pledges from the giver, 
 that for swords raised, money lost, or blood shed in the cause of 
 the Stuarts, knighthood and honors more substantial should follow 
 as soon as " the king" should " get his own again." 
 
 To revert to Charles I., it may be added that he was not half 
 so energetic in trying to keep his own as his grandson was in try- 
 ing to recover what had been lost. An incident connected with 
 the battle of Rowton Heath will serve to exemplify this. Never 
 did king have better champion than Charles had on that day, in 
 the able knight Sir Marmaduke Langdale. The knight in ques- 
 tion had gained a marked advantage over his adversary, the 
 equally able Poyntz. To cheer the king, then beleaguered in 
 Chester Castle, with the news, Sir Marmaduke despatched Colonel 
 Shakerley. He could not have commissioned a better man. The 
 colonel contrived to get into Chester after crossing the Dee in a 
 tub, which he worked with one hand, while he towed his horse 
 after him with the other. He delivered his message, and offered 
 to convey an answer or instructions back to Sir Marmaduke, and 
 by the same means, in a quarter of an hour. The king hesitated ; 
 some sanction required for a certain course of action proposed by 
 Sir Marmaduke was not given, and Poyntz recovered his lost 
 ground, defeated the royal horse, and thus effectually prevented 
 Charles from obtaining access to Scotland and Montrose. 
 
 I have given some illustrations of the means by which knight- 
 hood was occasionally gained : an amusing illustration remains to 
 be told. Dangeau, in his memoirs, speaks of two French peer- 
 esses who lived chiefly upon asses' milk, but who, nevertheless, 
 became afflicted with some of the ills incident to humanity, and 
 were ordered to take physic. They were disgusted with the pre- 
 scription, but got over the difficulty charmingly by physicking the 
 donkey. It was not an unusual thing in France for very great 
 people to treat their vices as they did their ailments, by a vicarious 
 treatment. Catherine de Medicis is one out of many instances of 
 
PIECES OF ARMOR. 471 
 
 this. She was desirous of succeeding in some great attempt, and 
 set down her failure to the account of her sins. She instantly de- 
 clared that she would atone for the latter, provided her desires 
 were accomplished, by finding a pilgrim who would go from France 
 to Jerusalem, on foot, and who at every three steps he advanced 
 should go back one. The wished-for success was achieved, and 
 after some difficulty a pilgrim was found, strong enough, and suffi- 
 ciently persevering to perform the pilgrimage. The royal pledge 
 was redeemed, and there only remained to reward the pilgrim, 
 who was a soldier from the neighborhood of Viterbo. Some say 
 he was a merchant ; but merchant or soldier, Catherine knighted, 
 ennobled, and enriched him. His arms were a cross and a branch 
 of palm tree. We are not told if he had a motto. It, at all 
 events, could not have been nulla vestigia retrorsum. They who 
 affirm that the pilgrim was a merchant, declare that his de- 
 scendants lost their nobility by falling again into commercial ways 
 — a course which was considered very derogatory, and indeed, 
 degrading, in those exclusive days. 
 
 I may mention here that Heraldry has, after all, very unfairly 
 treated many of the doers of great deeds. No person below the 
 degree of a knight could bear a cognizance of his own. Thus, 
 many a squire may have outdone his master in bravery ; and in- 
 deed, many a simple soldier may have done the same, but the 
 memory of it could not go down to posterity, because the valiant 
 actor was not noble enough to be worthy of distinction. In our 
 English army, much the same rule still obtains. Illustrious in- 
 competence is rewarded with " orders," but plain John Smith, who 
 has captured a gun with his own hands, receives a couple of sover- 
 eigns, which only enable him to degrade himself by getting drunk 
 with his friends, Our heraldic writers approve of this dainty way 
 of conferring distinctions. An anonymous author of a work on 
 Heraldry and Chivalry, published at Worcester "sixty years 
 since," says — "We must consider that had heraldry distributed 
 its honors indiscriminately, and with too lavish a hand, making no 
 distinction between gentry and plebeians, the glory of arms would 
 have been lost, and their lustre less refulgent." 
 
 But it is clear that the rule which allowed none to bear cogni- 
 zance who was not of the rank of a knight, was sometimes in- 
 
472 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS 
 
 fringed. Thus, when Edward the Black Prince made the stout 
 Sir James Audley, his own especial knight, with an annuity of 
 five hundred marks, for gallant services at Poictiers, Audley 
 divided the annuity among his four squires, Delves, Dutton, Foul- 
 thurst, and Hawkeston, and also gave them permission to wear his 
 own achievements, in memory of the way in which they had kept 
 at his side on the bloody day of Poictiers. 
 
 The fashion of different families wearing the same devices had, 
 however, its inconveniences. Thus, it happened that at this very 
 battle of Poictiers, or a little before it, Sir John Chandos recon- 
 noitring the French army, fell in with the Seigneur de Clerment, 
 who was reconnoitring the English army. Each saw that the 
 device on the upper vestment of his adversary was the same as 
 his own, blue worked with rays of gold round the border. They 
 each fell to sharp, and not very courteous words. The French 
 lord at length remarked that Sir John's claim to wear the device 
 was just like " the boastings of you English. You can not invent 
 anything new," added the angry French knight, " but when you 
 stumble on a pretty novelty, you forthwith appropriate it." After 
 more angry words they separated, vowing that in next day's fight, 
 they would make good all their assertions. 
 
 As the general rule was, that squires could not bear a cogni- 
 zance, so also was it a rule that knights should only fight with 
 their equals. 
 
 For knights are bound to feel no blows 
 
 From paltry and unequal foes ; 
 
 Who, when they slash and cut to pieces, 
 
 Do all Avith civilest addresses. 
 
 It is in allusion to this rule that Don Quixote says to Sancho 
 Panza : " Friend Sancho, for the future, whenever thou perceivest 
 us to be any way abused by such inferior fellows, thou art not to 
 expect that I should offer to draw my sword against them ; for I 
 will not do it in the least ; no, do thou then draw and chastise them 
 as thou thinkest fit ; but if any knight come to take their part, 
 then will I be sure to step in between thee and danger." 
 
 Knights, as I have said, have had honor conferred on them for 
 very strange reasons, in many countries, but in none for slighter 
 reasons, perhaps, than in France. We may probably except 
 
PIECES OF ARMOR. 473 
 
 Belgium ; for there is a living knight there, who obtained his 
 order of chivalry for his pleasant little exhibition of gallantry in 
 furnishing new-laid eggs every morning at the late queen's table, 
 when every hen but his, in the suburban village of Laecken had 
 ceased to lay ! 
 
 Dumas, in his " Salvandire," satirically illustrates how knights 
 were occasionally made in the days of Louis XIV. The hero of 
 that dashing romance finds himself a captive in the prison of Fort 
 l'Eveque ; and as the king will not grant him permission to leave, 
 he resolves to leave without permission. He makes the attempt 
 by night, descends from the window in the dark, is caught by the 
 thigh on a spike, and is ultimately carried to a cell and a bed 
 within his prison-walls. The following day the governor waits 
 upon him, and questions him upon the motives for his dangerous 
 enterprise. The good governor's curiosity is founded solely on 
 his anxiety to elicit from the prisoner, that the desire of the latter 
 to escape was not caused by his dissatisfaction with any of the 
 prison arrangements, whether of discipline or diet. The captive 
 signs a certificate to that effect, adding, that his sole motive for 
 endeavoring to set himself free, was because he had never done 
 anything to deserve that he should be put under restraint. A few 
 days after, the governor announces to the recluse that the certifi- 
 cate of the latter has had an excellent effect. Roger supposes 
 that it has gained him his liberty ; but the governor complacently 
 remarks that it has done better than that, and that the king, in 
 acknowledgment of the strict character of the governor's surveil- 
 lance, has created him chevalier of the order of St. Louis. If 
 all the prisoners had succeeded in escaping, as nearly as Roger, 
 the governor would probably have been made Knight of the Holy 
 Ghost ! The king of France had many such faithful servants ; 
 but history affords many examples of a truer fidelity than this ; 
 particularly the old romances and legendary history — examples 
 of faithfulness even after death ; but, though there may be many 
 more romantic in those chronicles, I doubt if there is any one so 
 touching as the proof of fidelity which a knighted civilian, Sir 
 Thomas Meautis, gave of his affection for Lord Bacon, to whom 
 that ancient servant of the great lawyer, erected a monument at 
 his own cost. Hamond Lestrange relates a curious incident, to 
 
474 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 show that these two were not divided even after death. " Sir 
 Thomas," says Lestrange, " was not nearer to him living than 
 dead ; for this Sir Thomas ending his life about a score of years 
 after, it was his lot to be inhumed so near his lord's sepulchre, 
 that in the forming of his grave, part of the viscount's body was 
 exposed to view ; which being espied by a doctor of physic, he 
 demanded the head to be given to him ; and did most shamefully 
 disport himself with that skull which was somewhile the continent 
 of so vast treasures of knowledge." 
 
 Other knights have been celebrated for other qualities. Thus, 
 Sir Julius Caesar never heard Bishop Hackett preach without 
 sending him a piece of money. Indeed, the good knight never 
 heard any preacher deliver a sermon without sending him money, 
 a pair of gloves, or some other little gift. He was unwilling, he 
 said, to hear the "Word of God, gratis. 
 
 Other knights have cared less to benefit preachers, than to set 
 up for makers or explainers of doctrines themselves. Thus the 
 Chevalier Kamsay held that Adam and Eve begot the entire 
 human race in Paradise, the members of which fell with their pro- 
 creators ; and in this way the chevalier found in an intelligible 
 form " the great, ancient, and luminous doctrine of our co-exist- 
 ence with our first parents." The Chevalier deemed that in 
 teaching such doctrine he was rearing plants for a new Paradise ; 
 but he was not half so usefully engaged as some brother knights 
 who were practically engaged as planters. We may cite Sir 
 John St. Aubyn, who introduced plane-trees into Cornwall in 
 1723; and Sir Anthony Ashley, the Dorchester knight, who 
 enjoys the reputation of having introduced cabbages into England 
 about the middle of the sixteenth century. 
 
 In contrast with these useful knights, the person of the once 
 famous Chevalier de Lorenzi seems to rise before me, and of him 
 I will now add a few words, by way of conclusion to my miscel- 
 laneous volume. 
 
 It is perhaps the tritest of platitudes to say that men are dis- 
 tinguished by various qualities ; but it is among the strangest if 
 not most novel of paradoxes, that the same man should be re- 
 markable for endowments of the most opposite quality. The ec- 
 centric knight whose name and title I have given above, is, how- 
 
PIECES OP ARMOR. 475 
 
 ever, an illustration of the fact ; namely, that a man may be at 
 once stupid and witty. It was chiefly for his stupidity that Lo- 
 renzi was famous, a stupidity which excited laughter. I must, 
 nevertheless, say in behalf of the brother of the once celebrated 
 minister of France at the Court of Florence, in the days of 
 Louis XV., that his stupidity so often looks like wit, as to induce 
 the belief that it was a humor too refined for his hearers to ap- 
 preciate. 
 
 Acute as Grimm was, he seems to have undervalued the cheva- 
 lier in this respect. That literary minister-plenipotentiary of the 
 Duke of Saxe Gotha could only see in the chevalier the most ex- 
 traordinary of originals. He acknowledges, at the same time, 
 Lorenzi's high feeling of honor, and his frank and gentle spirit. 
 The chevalier was crammed with scientific knowledge, but so con- 
 fusedly that, according to Grimm, he could never explain himself 
 in an intelligible way, or without exciting shouts of laughter on 
 the part of his hearers. Madame de Geoffrin, when comparing 
 the chevalier with the ungraceful M. de Burigny, said that the 
 latter was awkward in body, but that Lorenzi was awkward in 
 mind. As the latter never spoke without, at least, an air of pro 
 found reflection, and had therewith a piquant Florentine accent, 
 his mistakes were more relished. I do not think much of his mis- 
 apprehension when introduced, at Lyons, to M. de la Michaudiere, 
 in whose company he dined, at the residence of the commandant 
 of the city. The gentleman was addressed by an old acquaintance 
 as Le Michaudiere, and Lorenzi, mistaking this for L'Ami Chau- 
 diere, persisted in calling the dignified official by the appellation 
 of Monsieur Ghaudiere, which, to the proud intendant of Lyons, 
 must have been as bad as if the chevalier had certified that the 
 intendanfs father was a brazier. 
 
 He was far more happy, whether by chance or design, I can 
 not say, at a subsequent supper at M. de la Michaudiere's house. 
 At the table sat M. le Normant, husband of Madame de Pompa- 
 dour, then at the height of her brilliant infamy. Lorenzi hearing 
 from a neighbor, in reply to an inquiry, that the gentleman was 
 the consort of the lady in question, forthwith addressed him as 
 Monsieur de Pompadour, which was as severe an infliction as 
 husband so situated could well have endured. 
 
476 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 This honorable chevalier was clearly not a religious man — 
 but among knights and other distinguished personages in France, 
 and elsewhere, at the period of which I am treating, the two terms 
 were perfectly distinct, and had no necessary connection. Accord- 
 ingly, a lady who had called on Lorenzi one Sunday morning, 
 before eleven o'clock, proposed, at the end of then* conversation, 
 to go with him to mass. " Do they still celebrate mass ?" asked 
 the chevalier, with an air of astonishment. As he had not attend- 
 ed mass for fifteen years, Grinim gravely asserts that the Floren- 
 tine imagined that it was no longer celebrated. " The more," adds 
 the epistolary baron, "that as he never went out before two 
 o'clock, he no longer recollected that he had seen a church-door 
 open." 
 
 The chevalier, who was Knight of the Order of St. Stephen of 
 Tuscany, and who had withdrawn from the French Army, with 
 the rank of colonel, after the conquest of Minorca, had a great 
 devotion toward the abstract sciences. He studied geometry and 
 astronomy, and had the habit, says Grimm, to measure the events 
 of life, and reduce them to geometrical value. As he was 
 thoughtful, he more frequently, when addressed, made reply to 
 abstruse questionings of his own brain than to persons who 
 spoke to him. Grimm, after saying that the Knight of St. Stephen 
 was only struck by the true or false side of a question, and never 
 by its pleasant or amusing aspect, illustrates his saying by an an- 
 ecdote, in which many persons will fail to find any remarkable 
 point. Grimm encountered him at Madame Geoffrin's, after his 
 return from a tour in Italy. " I saw him embroiling his senses 
 with the genealogies of two ladies in whose society he passes his 
 life, and who bear the same name, although they are of distinct 
 families. Madame Geoffrin . endeavored to draw him from these 
 genealogical snares, observing to him : — ' Really, chevalier, you 
 are in your dotage. It is worse than ever.' ' Madame,' answered 
 the chevalier, ' life is so short !' " Grimm thought he should have 
 done rank injustice to posterity if he had not recorded this reply 
 for the benefit of future students of laconic wit. And again : — 
 Grimm shows us the chevalier walking with Monsieur de St. 
 Lambert toward Versailles. On the way, the latter asked him 
 his age. " I am sixty," said the knight. " I did not think you so 
 
PIECES OF ARMOR. 477 
 
 old," rejoined his friend. " Well," replied the chevalier, " when 
 I say sixty, I am not indeed quite so old, just yet ; but — " " But 
 how old are you then, in reality ?" asked his companion. " Fifty- 
 five, exactly ; but why may I not be allowed to accustom myself 
 to change my age every year, as I do my shirt ?" 
 
 One day, he was praising the figure of a lady, but instead of 
 saying that she had the form of a nymph, he said that her shape 
 was like that of Mademoiselle Allard. "Oh!" cried Grimm, 
 '• you are not lucky, chevalier, in your comparison. Mademoiselle 
 Allard may be deservedly eulogized for many qualities, but no- 
 body ever thought of praising her shape." " Likely enough," said 
 Lorenzi, " for I do not know, nor, indeed, have I ever seen her ; 
 but as everybody talks about Mademoiselle Allard, I thought I 
 might talk about her too." 
 
 If there was satire in this it was not of so neat a quality as 
 that exhibited by him at Madame Greffon's, where he was spend- 
 ing an evening with Grimm and D'Alembert. The last two were 
 seated, and conversing. Lorenzi stood behind them, with his back 
 to the chimney-piece, and scarcely able to hold up his head, so 
 overcome was he by a desire to sleep. " Chevalier," said Grimm, 
 " you must find our conversation a horrid bore, since you fall 
 asleep when you are on your legs." " Oh, no !" exclaimed the 
 chevalier, " you see I go to sleep when I like." The naivete 
 with which he insinuated that he liked to go to sleep rather than 
 listen to the small talk of a wit and a philosopher, was expressed 
 with a delicious delicacy. 
 
 Of his non-sequential remarks Grimm supplies several. He 
 was once speaking disparagingly of M. de St. Lambert's know- 
 ledge of chess. "You forget," said the latter, "that I gained 
 fifteen louis to your thirty sous, during our campaign in Minorca.' 
 " Oh, ay," answered the knight, " but that was toward the end of 
 the siege !" 
 
 It was at this siege that he used to go to the trenches with 
 his astronomical instruments, to make observations. He one day 
 returned to his quarters without his instruments, having left 
 them all in the trenches. " They will certainly be stolen," said a 
 friend. " That can't be," said Lorenzi, " for I left my watch with 
 them." 
 
478 THE KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS. 
 
 And yet this " distraught" knight was the cause, remote cause, 
 of the death of Admiral Byng. He discovered, by mere chance, 
 in his quarters at Minorca, a book of signals as used by the En- 
 glish fleet. He hastened with it to the Prince de Beaubeau, who, 
 in his turn, hastened to place it before the Marshal de Richelieu. 
 The commanders could scarcely believe in their good fortune, but 
 when the naval combat commenced it was seen that the English 
 observed this system of signals exactly. "With this knowledge 
 it was easy to anticipate all their manoeuvres, and they were ob- 
 liged to withdraw with disgrace, which Byng was made to 
 expiate by his death. The chevalier never thought of ask- 
 ing for a reward, and his government entirely forgot to give 
 him one. 
 
 When about to accompany M. de Mirepoix, who was appointed 
 embassador to London, he packed up his own things and that so 
 perfectly that it was not till he had sent them off that he discov- 
 ered he had left himself nothing to travel in but the shirt and 
 robe-de-chambre which he wore while employed in thus disposing 
 of the rest of his wardrobe. 
 
 He lived in a small apartment at the Luxembourg, as persons 
 of like rank and small means reside in the royal palace at Hamp- 
 ton Court. One day, on descending the staircase he slipped, and 
 broke his nose. On looking round for the cause of his accident, 
 he observed a whitish fluid on the steps ; and, calling the porter, 
 he rated him soundly for allowing this soapy water to remain on 
 the staircase. " It is barley water," said the porter, " which a 
 waiter from the cafe spilled as he carried it along." " Oh ! if 
 that be the case," replied the chevalier, in a mild tone, and with 
 his hand up to his mutilated nose, " if that be the case, it is I who 
 am in the wrong." 
 
 Grimm adds, in summing up his character, that he was richer 
 in pocket handkerchiefs than any other man. As his apartment 
 was just under the roof of the palace, and that he, almost every 
 day on going out, forgot to take a handkerchief with him, he 
 found it less trouble to buy a new than to ascend to his room and 
 procure an old one. Accordingly, a mercer in his neighborhood 
 had a fresh handkerchief ready for him every day. 
 
 The history of eccentric knights would make a volume of 
 
 AUG 3 
 
 L 
 
PIECES OF AEMOR. 479 
 
 itself. Here, therefore, I will conclude, grateful to the readers 
 who may have honored me by perusing any portion of the mis- 
 cellaneous pages which I have devoted to illustrations of chivalry, 
 and, adding a remark of Johnson, who says, touching the respect 
 paid to those who bear arms, that "The naval and military 
 professions have the dignity of danger, and that mankind 
 reverence those who have got over fear, which is so general a 
 weakness." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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