Part 33
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 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 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 his collar, and added to it by way of device, the words “Souvenez de moi.” It is worthy of observation 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 Valois is also characteristic of the gallant, if not the amorous knight. At the betrothal of the illustrious couple, Henry presented to the lady his own favorite knight, Sir Louis de Robsart, as her personal 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 Winchester 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 this ill-matched pair to that of their successors Edward IV. and his wife Elizabeth Woodville! This king assumed one privilege of knighthood, by loving whom he pleased, and marrying whom he 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 III., 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 English 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 inclined 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.”
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 adventurous 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 Aragon, 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. Edward IV., therefore, when he conferred the collar on the Tanner of Tamworth, 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 Esquire That is in the North Countrie.”
In Edward’s time then, the collar may have constituted the difference between squire and knight. But it was not the only one. If there was a difference at their necks, there was also a distinction 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 Beynhurst from the statute of Hue and Cry (where there was no voluntary 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 curé 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 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.”
Refreshment 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.”
“Your countenance, though it be glossed with knighthood, looks so borrowingly, 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 lamentable 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 handicraftsmen 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 himself 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?”
and he makes the following comment upon this well-known text:
“There be many of so gross understanding that they think to 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 demeanor 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 gentleman, even so much as the first earthly follower of virtues. But if there were in him no such virtue, then was he the first gentleman in whom virtues and gentle deeds did first appear.”
As a training toward excellence, our anonymous author recommends 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 ‘Royster,’” 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 society 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 manners, 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 gentleman-like bearing, scholarly education, and Christian principles, now make of a man a gentleman, let him be of “gentle” house or not. Indeed, 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, 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 compelled 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 gentleman 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 promotion.” 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 confiscation of abbeys and abbey-estates. He has a curious passage on this subject:--
“They have wrongfully intruded into gentry, and thrust themselves therein, as Bayard, the cart-jade, might leap into the stable of Bucephalus, and thrust his head into the manger with that worthy 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 putting down of abbeys, which time is within my remembrance.”
While allowing that gentlemanly manners help to make the gentleman, 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 defend 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 gentlemen, 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 useful to the commonwealth. Courage, liberality, and faithful observance 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 soldier, 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 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 employed, 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 democratic element into the public offices. Thus we find him maintaining 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 gentlemen 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 gentleman 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 message unto him.” Surely a man of good sense might do this, irrespective 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 gentlemen maintained such hospitality as has seldom been since witnessed, 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 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 their 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 disqualification, 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 même_. 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.”