Part 18

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--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 amendment 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 dismissed Cicely and made his peace with poor Lady Breton, but the rollicking old knight kept the College in an uproar, nevertheless. He resumed attendance at chapel, indeed, but he did this after a fashion of his own. He would walk slowly in the procession 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 ridiculous 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 addicted to running about among the congregation. It would puzzle 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, however, 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 decorum. The vicars were as bad as the canons. The qualifications ascribed to them of being “inflated and wanton,” sufficiently 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 exhibiting 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 salaries 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 practices. A matter of more moment was submitted to the jurisdiction 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 render 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 much-encumbered cloisters, the licentiousness which was once common to men in the camp.

Churchmen and knights went on in their old courses, notwithstanding the interference of inquisitors. Alterations were made in the statutes, to meet the evil; some knights solicited incorporation 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 VIII., 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 careful that no preacher should hold forth there, who was not more friendly to the commonwealth than to monarchy.

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 benevolent Mr. Travers bequeathed property to be applied to the maintenance 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 testator, and under sanction of the sovereign. What counsellors and attorneys fattened upon the costs, meantime, it is not now of importance 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 constant 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 Plantagenet 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 accept the hand of Geoffrey of Anjou. “He is so like a girl,” said Matilda. “There is not a more lion-hearted knight in all Christendom,” replied the king. “There is none certainly so sheep-faced,” retorted the arrogant heiress; she then reluctantly consented 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 created 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 instance, 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 lion. 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 II. that the almost extinct fraternity 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 ribands, 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 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 Garter. ‘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 resolved 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 commissions 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 officers holding inferior commissions to those named above, and whose services in their country’s cause rendered them eligible for admission.

These arrangements have been somewhat modified subsequently, and not without reason. Henry VIIth’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 degradation of a knight “convicted of heresy against the Articles of the Christian religion;” or who has been “attainted of high treason,” 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 degradation, 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 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 Garter, 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.[1]

[1] Subsequently, the Prince Regent 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.

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 his “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 Majesty’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 in 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 II., whose coins bore the impress of St. Andrew and his cross. James III. 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, subsequently, suppressed the chivalric order, as popish, and it was not till the reign of James II. of England that the thistle and chivalry again bloomed together. The order is accessible only to peers. 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 infinite 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 “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.

THE KNIGHTS OF THE “SAINTE AMPOULE.”

“Mais ce sont des chevaliers pour rire.”--_Le 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-episcopal 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 coronation, 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, accordingly, Hinckmar was allowed to have proved his case. Thenceforward, 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 character concluded together. From that time, down to the period of Louis XVI., the knights and the vial formed the most distinguished 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 marguillier_ 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. Philippe’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 _marguillier_ stammered out an assertion that the reliquary was in the keeping of the curé, M. Seraine, to whom he would make instant application.

“Bring pomatum and all,” said Citizen Rhull, who thus profanely 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 therewith?”

“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 curé 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 curé, Monsieur Seraine, with a quickness of thought that did justice 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 curé 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.” And with the handle of the spoon, having extracted some small portions, which the curé subsequently wrapped up carefully, and rather illegibly labelled, the vial was delivered to Philippe, who surrendered it to Citizen Rhull, who carried the same to the front of the finest cathedral in France, and at the foot of the statue of Louis XV. Citizen Rhull solemnly hammered the vial into powder, and, in the name of the Republic, trod the precious ointment underfoot 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 assured, was irrevocably destroyed.