queen of Charles I. met with at the hands of a Commonwealth 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
conspicuous 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 impertinence to the queen. He now ostentatiously
put himself in her way when she took her airing, and while all around
him uncovered 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, however gross;
and 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 Jacobites, 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 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 respects, 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
impeded 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 to one of the dismayed sailors,
“are you afraid to die in my company?” The _vehis Cæsarem_ 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
become 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 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 peremptorily
affirms himself to be so, and who will cut anybody’s throat that
questions it, even upon the best grounds. He is infinitely 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 regardless of its principles. His expense should
exceed his income considerably, 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, servants, or tradesmen,
may think to the contrary, notwithstanding.”
Lord Chesterfield goes on to exemplify the then modern chivalrous
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 fortune 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
preserve 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 his vote, persuaded as he is that
the minister will not be the first person 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 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,
depend 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 “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 distinction, which the
author draws with some ingenuity. “I must observe,” 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 sometimes 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
distinguished 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
reign of George II., very naturally excited the admiration of Walpole.
“What milksops,” he writes in 1760, “the Marlboroughs 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 Agamemnon. 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 was 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.”
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 queen. Indignant at the neglect 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 removed 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 reinstated
in the Palatinate. No sooner had Christian taken this engagement than
he eagerly proclaimed it to the world, by substituting on his ensign,
instead of his denunciation of priests, an intelligible 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.
“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.
And be your country’s good the cause
Of all this proud and mortal stir,
While Brunswick his true sabre draws
For 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 we 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.” Naylor, in his “Civil and Military 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 Christian 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.
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 quantity
of knights. Indeed, I think it may be asserted without fear of
contradiction, that the first and the last William, and James I. were
more addicted to dubbing knights than any other of our sovereigns. The
good-natured William IV. created them in such profusion that, at last,
gentlemen at the head of deputations appeared in the royal presence
with a mysterious dread lest, in spite of themselves, they should be
compelled to undergo a chivalric metamorphosis, at the hands of the
“sea king.” The honor was so constantly inflicted, that the recipients
were massed together by “John Bull” as “The Thousand and one (K)nights!”
William the Conqueror was not so lavish in accolades as his descendant
of remoter days, nor was he so off-handed in the way of administering
the distinction. He drew his sword with solemnity, laid it on the
shoulder before him with a sort of majestic composure, and throughout
the ceremony looked as calm as dignity required. William is said to
have ennobled or knighted his cook. He does not stand alone in having
so acted: for, unless I am singularly mistaken, the great Louis tied
some small cross of chivalry to the button-hole of the immortal Vatel.
William’s act, however, undoubtedly gave dignity to that department
in palaces, whence many princes have derived their only pleasure. It
was from him that there passed into the palace of France the term
“Officiers de Service,” a term which has been appropriated by others
of less elevated degree than those whom it originally served to
distinguish. The term has led to a standing joke in such dwellings.
“Qui vive?” exclaims a sentinel in one of the base passages, as one of
these officials draws near at night. “Officier,” is the reply of the
modest official in question. “Quel officier?” asks the guard. “Officier
de service!” proudly answers he who is thus questioned; whereupon the
soldier smilingly utters “Passe, Caramel!” and the royal officer--_not_
of the body-guard, passes, as smilingly, on his way.
But, to return from Caramel to the Conqueror, I have to observe, that
the cook whom William knighted bore an unmusical, if not an unsavory,
name. The culinary artist was called Tezelin. The service by which
he had won knighthood consisted in the invention of a white soup for
maigre days. The hungry but orthodox William had been accustomed to
swallow a thin broth “à l’eau de savon;” but Tezelin placed before
him a tureen full of an orthodox yet appetizing liquid, which he
distinguished by the name of _Dillegrout_. The name is not promising,
particularly the last syllable, but the dish could not have been a bad
one. William created the inventor “chevalier de l’office,” and Sir
Caramel Tezelin was farther gratified by being made Lord of the Manor
of Addington. Many a manor had been the wages of less honest service.
The Tiercelins are descendants of the Tezelins; and it has often
struck me as curious that of two recently-deceased holders of that
name, one, a cutler in England, was famous for the excellence of his
carving-knives; and the other, an actor in France, used to maintain
that the first of comic parts was the compound cook-coachman in
Molière’s “_Avare_.” Thus did they seem to prove their descent from the
culinary chivalry of William of Normandy.
But there are other samples of William’s knights to be noticed. Among
the followers who landed with him between Pevensey and Hastings, was
a Robert who, for want of a surname, and because of his sinews, was
called Robert le Fort, or “Strong.” It would have gone ill with William
on the bloody day on which he won a throne, had it not been for this
Robert le Fort, who interposed his escu or shield, between the skull
of the Norman and the battle-axe of a Saxon warrior. This opportune
service made a “Sieur Robert” of him who rendered it, and on the
coat-of-arms awarded to the new knight was inscribed the device which
yet belongs to the Fortescues;--“Forte Scutum Salus Ducum,”--a strong
shield is the salvation of dukes--or leaders, as the word implies.
The Duke of Normandy could not have devised a more appropriate motto;
but he was probably helped to it by the learning and ready wit of his
chaplain.
The danger into which William rushed that day was productive of dignity
to more than one individual. Thus, we hear of a soldier who, on finding
William unhorsed, and his helmet beaten into his face, remounted his
commander after cleverly extricating his head from the battered load
of iron that was about it. William, later in the day, came upon the
trusty squire, fainting from the loss of a leg and a thigh. “You gave
me air when I lacked it,” said the Conqueror, “and such be, henceforth,
thy name; and for thy lost leg and thigh, thou shalt carry them, from
this day, on thy shield of arms.” The maimed knight was made lord of
broad lands in Derbyshire; and his descendants, the Eyres, still bear a
leg and a thigh in armor, for their crest. It is too pretty a story to
lose, but if the account of these knight-makings be correct, some doubt
must be attached to that of the devices, if, as some assert, armorial
bearings were not used until many years subsequent to the battle of
Hastings. The stories are, no doubt, substantially true. William, like
James III. of Scotland, was addicted to knighting and ennobling any
individuals who rendered him the peculiar pleasures he most coveted.
Pitscottie asserts that the latter king conferred his favors on masons
and fiddlers; and we are told that he not only made a knight of
Cochrane, a mason, but also raised him to the dignity of Earl of Mar.
Cochrane, however, was an architect, but he would have been none the
worse had he been a mason--at least, had he been a man and mason of
such quality as Hugh Millar and Allan Cuningham.
Although it has been often repeated that there were no knights, in the
proper sense of that word, before the period of William the Conqueror,
this must be accepted with such amount of exception as to be almost
equivalent to a denial of the assertion. There were knights before
the Conquest, but the systems differed. Thus we know from Collier’s
Ecclesiastical History that Athelstan was knighted by Alfred; and
this is said to have been the first instance of the performance of
the ceremony that can be discovered. Here again, however, a question
arises. Collier has William of Malmesbury for his authority. The words
of this old author are: “Athelstane’s grandfather, Alfred, seeing and
embracing him affectionately, when he was a boy of astonishing beauty
and graceful manners, had most devoutly prayed that his government
might be prosperous; indeed, he had made him a knight unusually early,
giving him a scarlet cloak, a belt studded with diamonds, and a Saxon
sword with a golden scabbard.” This, and similar instances which might
be cited, is supposed by some to prove the existence of knights as a
distinct order among the Saxons, while others think that it may amount
to nothing more than the first bestowing of arms. Louis le Débonnaire,
it is remarked, _ense accinctus est_, received his arms at thirteen
years old. But this was in some degree “knighting,” for we read in
Leland’s History of Ireland, of Irish knighthood being conferred on
recipients only seven years old.