Knights and their days

The chief writings of the Rev. SYDNEY SMITH are included in the original English editions in eight octavo volumes. These are his “Two Volumes of Sermons,” 1809; the Collection o...

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...

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...

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 un...

“There was close by a knight who had heard all the conversation between the king and Moris, and he went in haste to Sir Fulke, and told him that the king was about to confirm by...

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...

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...

I believe that St. Cedd, 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 so...

The next knight whom I can call to mind as having been frightened by marriage into monkery, is St. Vandrille, Count of the Palace to King Dagobert. During the period of his knig...

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...

Jeanne was not so affected as to believe that nobility was above the desert of her deeds. When her relatives, including her brothers, Peter and John, congratulated her and thems...

There, near there, or somewhere else, for the romances are dreadfully careless in their topography, he falls in with his old love Sabra, married to a Moorish King. If George is...

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...

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. Hav...

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...

In February, 1652, the Parliament abolished all titles and honors conferred by Charles I. since the 4th of January, two years previously. This was done on the ground that the la...

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 Denm...

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...

The time, indeed, did come round again for princes, and Napoleon was to be crowned at Notre Dame. He cared little as to what had become of the Heaven-descended ointment, and he...

The history of the last individual knight given in these imperfect pages (Guy of Warwick), showed how history and romance wove themselves together in biography. Coming down to a...

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 m...

In the pleasant spring-time of the year 1506, a little boy, mounted on a mule, and accompanied by a serving man on foot, crossed over the frontier from Lorraine into France. The...

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 tha...

The last Valois, with his last breath, had named the Protestant Henri of Navarre as his legal successor to the throne; but between Henri and his inheritance there stood Rome and...

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 wa...

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 in...

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 quietl...

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 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...

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 t...

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,...

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...

Of the chivalrous spirit of Henry IV. no one entertains a doubt, and yet he once refused to accept a challenge. The challenger was the Duke of Orleans, who had been Henry’s swor...

We come upon another social trait, when we find the author lamenting that, however much it becometh a gentleman to be acquainted with hawking and hunting, yet that these pastime...

The only step subsequent to the prince’s acquiescence, was to obtain the king’s permission, a matter of little difficulty. They attacked the good-natured and simple James at a m...

He was arrogant in prosperity, but the slightest check dreadfully depressed him, and it is hardly necessary to say that he who is easily elated or easily depressed, has little i...

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 w...

In the second year of the reign of James I., he made not less than three hundred knights; and on another occasion he is said to have made two hundred and thirty-seven in six wee...

It was not often that George III. was facetious, but tradition has attributed to him a compound pun, when he was urged by his minister to confer knighthood upon Judge Day, on th...

Among his dearest fellow _Alumni_ here were Rubianus and Hoff, both of whom subsequently achieved great renown. In the Augustine convent, near the school, there was residing a p...

The cities of the hard-pressed duke fell, one after the other, and the guilty prince was driven from his inheritance. Von Hutten remained with the army, busily plying his pen; h...

The candidate was ready to swear anything, and each elector was required to make oath, on a brick-bat, “quod rem cum aliquâ muliere intra limites istius pagi habuissent.” The ca...

When the king became emancipated, however, although he continued to summon “barons and great men,” he never during his reign issued a writ for the election of knights of the shi...

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 “load...

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...

The Life of P. T. Barnum, written by himself; in which he narrates his early history as Clerk, Merchant, and Editor, and his later career as a Showman. With a Portrait on steel,...

It describes all that the intelligent author saw, in a clear and very agreeable manner, and mentions many things of a personal character, which, of course, would form no part of...