Part 37

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.

If William the Conqueror made many knights in order to celebrate 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 will keep them!” To which all his lively lads uttered a vigorous “Ay, ay,” and the Norman commissioners were so satisfied with the title, that they did not venture 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. 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 appeared 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 huntsmen blew a _mort_, and the notes proclaiming the death of the stag were taken up and repeated by the “horners” of the city, who received a trifle from the rosy dean and chapter, for thus increasing the noisy importance of the occasion.

There is something, too, worthy of notice in the fact that Richard 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 pursuits. This lord mayor, however, derived very considerable profits from pursuits less creditable to him. He was the owner of tenements 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 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 regularly 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 sweeping 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 nature, 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 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 acknowledgments for money received. One official, however, Hastings, 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 XI.

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 himself 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 mistress. 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 VIII. 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 dignity, 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 III., 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 reputation in Sir Richard Hutton, Charles I.’s “honest judge,” at 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 clergyman.”

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, _aliàs_ Cromwell, with five other gentlemen, challenged all or any comers from Scotland, Flanders, France, or Spain, who were willing to encounter them in the lists. The challenge was duly accepted, and on the day of encounter, Richard Cromwell flung two of his adversaries 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 4_s._ 2_d._ held in capite by the tenth part of a knight’s fee, paying £29 16_s._”

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 improvements he had introduced into his art, at a time when printers and paper-makers were considered by Romanists anything but angels of light.

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 answered 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 encouragement to men of respectable station to begin the ascent in profession 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 _Athenæ_, shows that the first Sir Herbert was a literary knight, who took up pen in the service of the communion into which he had entered. 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 Holliday, who served the office of Lord Mayor in 1605, 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 return. 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 wonderful a change as Louis Napoleon has done in the Bois de Boulogne; 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 transformed 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 necessary 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 Rizzio. 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 dreaded 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 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 embassador lower his flag to the pennant of the English vessel sent out to receive or escort him. This, however, had been well nigh construed 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 _à-propos_ to titles, let me add that, in James’s time, it was, according to Jonson--

“----a received heresy That England bears no Dukes.”

Southey commenting on this passage, said that the title was probably thought ominous, so many dukes having lost their heads.