Part 1

The History of Chivalry or Knighthood and its times.

By CHARLES MILLS, Esqr. Author of the History of the Crusades

IN TWO VOLUMES

Vol: II.

London. Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green. MDCCCXXV.

CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

Page

CHAP. I. STATE OF CHIVALRY IN ENGLAND DURING THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE THIRD.

Tournaments ... The Round Table ... Order of the Garter ... Courtesy of Edward ... Prevalence of chivalric taste among all classes ... English archers ... The Black Prince ... Story of the king's chivalry ... England regarded as the seat of honour ... Instance of this ... Chivalric heroes in this reign ... The gestes and prowesses of Sir Walter Manny ... Chivalric vow of Sir Walter ... He fights for the love of his lady ... His rescue of two brother knights ... Instance of his joyous adventurousness ... His gallantry before Auberoche ... His filial piety ... Story of chivalric manners ... The gentle disposition of Manny ... His importance at Edward's court ... His remarkable sagacity ... His liberality ... His death in 1372 ... Buried in the Charter-House ... Heroism of Sir James Audley ... His generosity ... Memoir of Sir John Chandos ... His gallantry to ladies ... Amusing instance of the pride of knighthood ... The importance of his counsel at Poictiers ... His exploits in Brittany ... And in Spain ... Is made a knight banneret ... Quits the Black Prince ... But returns ... The remarkable generousness of his conduct to Lord Pembroke ... The last circumstance of his life ... General grief at his death 1

CHAP. II. PROGRESS OF CHIVALRY IN GREAT BRITAIN, FROM THE REIGN OF RICHARD II. TO THAT OF HENRY VIII.

Complaints of the unchivalric state of Richard's court ... Influence of chivalry on the national character ... Scottish chivalry ... Chivalric kindness of Robert Bruce ... Mutual chivalry between the Scotch and English courts ... French knights' opinions of Scottish chivalry ... Courtesies between English and Scottish knights ... Chivalric battle of Otterbourn ... Hotspur and the Douglas ... A cavaleresque story ... Reign of Henry IV. ... Chivalric parley between him and the Duke of Orleans ... Henry's unchivalric conduct at Shrewsbury ... Henry V. ... Knights of the Bath ... Henry's love of chivalric books ... His chivalric bearing ... Commencement of the decline of chivalry ... The civil wars injured chivalry ... Caxton's lamentation ... He exaggerates the evil ... Many gallant English knights ... Character of Henry VIII. with reference to chivalry ... Tournaments in his reign ... Field of the cloth of gold ... Introduction of Italian literature favoured romance ... Popularity of chivalric literature ... English knights continued to break lances for ladies' love ... State of Scottish chivalry at this period ... James IV. ... Chivalric circumstances at Flodden Field 64

CHAP. III. THE LAST YEARS OF CHIVALRY IN ENGLAND.

The chivalric feelings of the nation supported by Spenser ... and by Sir Philip Sidney ... Allusions to Sidney's life ... particularly his kindly consideration ... Chivalric politeness of the age of Elizabeth ... The Earl of Oxford ... Tilts in Greenwich Park ... Sir Henry Lee ... Chivalry reflected in the popular amusements ... Change of manners ... Reign of James the First ... Tournaments ceased on Prince Henry's death ... Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury ... Chivalric fame of his family ... His character ... His inferiority to the knights of yore ... Decline of chivalric education ... Important change in knighthood by the parliament of Charles the First ... Application of chivalric honours to men of civil station ... Knights made in the field ... Carpet knights ... Knights of the Bath ... Full account of the ancient ceremonies of creating knights of the Bath 125

CHAP. IV. PROGRESS OF CHIVALRY IN FRANCE.

Chivalry in baronial castles ... Chivalry injured by religious wars ... Beneficial influence of poetry and romance ... Chivalric brilliancy of the fourteenth century ... Brittany ... Du Guesclin ... Romantic character of his early years ... His knightly conduct at Rennes ... Gallantry at Cochetel ... Political consequences of his chivalry ... He leads an army into Spain ... And changes the fortunes of that kingdom ... Battle of Navaret ... Du Guesclin prisoner ... Treatment of him by the Black Prince ... Ransomed ... Is made Constable of France ... Recovers the power of the French monarchy ... Companionship in arms between Du Guesclin and Olivier De Clisson ... Du Guesclin's death before Randon ... His character ... Decline of chivalry ... Proof of it ... Little chivalry in the second series of French and English wars ... Combats of pages ... Further Decay of chivalry ... Abuses in conferring knighthood ... Burgundy ... Its chivalry ... The romantic nature of the Burgundian tournaments ... Last gleams of chivalry in France ... Life of Bayard ... Francis I. ... Extinction of chivalry 168

CHAP. V. PROGRESS OF CHIVALRY IN SPAIN.

General nature of Spanish chivalry ... Religion and heroism ... Gallantry ... Blending of Spanish and Oriental manners ... Its beneficial tendencies ... Peculiarities of Spanish chivalry ... Forms of knighthood ... Various ranks of knights ... Spanish poetry ... Heroes of chivalry ... Pelayo ... Bernardo del Carpio ... And incidentally of Charlemagne's expedition into Spain ... The life of the Cid ... His early ferocious heroism ... Singular marriage ... Enters the service of King Ferdinand ... The Cid's chivalric gallantry ... He is knighted ... Death of King Ferdinand ... The Cid becomes the knight of Sancho, king of Castile ... Mixture of evil and good in the Cid's character ... Supports the king in his injustice ... The Cid's romantic heroism ... Sancho's further injustice opposed by him ... Death of Sancho ... Instance of the Cid's virtuous boldness ... Character of Alfonso, successor of Sancho ... Story of his chivalric bearing ... The Cid's second marriage ... Is banished from Alfonso's court ... Becomes the ally of the Moors ... But recalled ... Is banished again ... Singular story of the Cid's unknightly meanness ... Fortunes of the Cid during his exile ... The Cid's chivalric nobleness and generosity ... Is recalled by Alfonso ... The Cid captures Toledo ... and Valentia ... Story of Spanish manners ... The Cid's unjust conduct to the Moors ... The unchivalric character of the Cid's wife and daughters ... The Cid recalled by Alfonso ... The marriages of his daughters ... Basely treated by their husbands ... Cortez at Toledo to decide the cause ... Picture of ancient manners ... Death of the Cid ... His character ... Fate of his good horse ... Spanish chivalry after his death ... Gallantry of a knight ... The merits of missals decided by battle ... Passage of arms at Orbigo ... Knights travel and joust for ladies' love ... Extinction of Spanish chivalry 230

CHAP. VI. PROGRESS OF CHIVALRY IN GERMANY AND ITALY.

Chivalry did not affect the public history of Germany ... Its influence on Imperial manners ... Intolerance and cruelty of German knights ... Their harshness to their squires ... Avarice of the Germans ... Little influence of German chivalry ... A remarkable exception to this ... A female tournament ... Maximilian, the only chivalric emperor of Germany ... Joust between him and a French knight ... Edict of Frederic III. destroyed chivalry ... CHIVALRY IN ITALY: ... Lombards carried chivalry thither ... Stories of chivalric gallantry ... But little martial chivalry in Italy ... Condottieri ... Chivalry in the north ... Italians excellent armourers but bad knights ... Chivalry in the south ... Curious circumstances attending knighthood at Naples ... Mode of creating knights in Italy generally ... Political use of knighthood ... Chivalric literature ... Chivalric sports 303

CHAP. VII. ON THE MERITS AND EFFECTS OF CHIVALRY 341

THE HISTORY OF CHIVALRY.

CHAP. I.

STATE OF CHIVALRY IN ENGLAND DURING THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE THIRD.

_Tournaments ... The Round Table ... Order of the Garter ... Courtesy of Edward ... Prevalence of chivalric Taste among all Classes ... English Archers ... The Black Prince ... Story of the King's Chivalry ... England regarded as the Seat of Honour ... Instance of this ... Chivalric Heroes in this Reign ... The Gestes and Prowesses of Sir Walter Manny ... Chivalric Vow of Sir Walter ... He fights for the Love of his Lady ... His Rescue of Two Brother Knights ... Instance of his joyous Adventurousness ... His Gallantry before Auberoche ... His filial Piety ... Story of chivalric Manners ... The Gentle Disposition of Manny ... His Importance at Edward's Court ... His remarkable Sagacity ... His Liberality ... His Death in 1372 ... Buried in the Charter-House ... Heroism of Sir James Audley ... His Generosity ... Memoir of Sir John Chandos ... His Gallantry to Ladies ... Amusing Instance of the Pride of Knighthood ... The Importance of his Counsel at Poictiers ... His Exploits in Brittany ... And in Spain ... Is made a Knight Banneret ... Quits the Black Prince ... But returns ... The remarkable Generousness of his Conduct to Lord Pembroke ... The last Circumstance of his Life ... General Grief at his Death._

[Sidenote: Tournaments.]

The sun of English chivalry reached its meridian in the reign of Edward III., for the King and the nobles all were knightly, and the image of their character was reflected in the minds of the people.[1] Tournaments and jousts, for the amusement and in honour of the ladies, were the universal fashion of the time. In little more than one year, chivalric solemnities were held with unparalleled magnificence at Litchfield, Bury, Guildford, Eltham, Canterbury, and twice at Windsor.[2] The gay character of Edward and his court was pleasingly displayed in the spring of the year 1359, three years after the battle of Poictiers. A solemn tournament of three days' duration was proclaimed in London, and the lord mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, proposed to keep the field against all comers. The time arrived, the martial games were held, and all the honor of arms appeared to be of right due to the officers of the city. The victors then threw aside their shields and surcoats impressed with the city's bearings, removed their beavers, and King Edward, the Black Prince, the Princes Lionel, John, and Edmund, and nineteen noble barons, were recognised.[3]

[Sidenote: The round table.]

[Sidenote: Order of the Garter.]

The round table at Kenilworth already mentioned was not a solitary instance of the love of romantic grandeur and gallantry among the people of England. Mortimer kept a round table of knights in Wales professedly in imitation of Arthur,[4] And afterwards Edward III. endeavoured to realise the golden imaginations of fable which had assigned one hundred and fifty knights as the complement of Arthur's chivalry.[5] We are assured that the round table which Edward established at Windsor in 1344 described a circumference of six hundred feet: but it is more interesting to know, that the nobility and knighthood of France, Germany, Spain, and other countries flocked to England on the invitation of the King, and that the chivalric bands at Windsor were graced by the presence of Queen Philippa and three hundred English ladies, who, in honour of the friendly union of knights, were all arrayed in splendid dresses of one form and fashion, and looked like the sisters of a military order. Policy was mixed with chivalric pride in Edward's plan; for he wished to retain in his service some of the foreign knights who repaired to the tournament at Windsor. But his intention to strengthen his chivalry was defeated by his rival Philip of Valois, who established also a round table, to which the cavaliers of the Continent could more easily repair than to that of Edward.[6] The knights of France were expressly forbidden by their king to attend the festivities of the round table at Windsor. The English monarch found, too, that he could not secure the attachment of stranger knights. That great chivalric principle, the companionship in weal or woe of men forming one society, was never regarded by them. Edward's table at Windsor was surrounded by gay cavaliers, who talked and sang of war and love, and then merrily returned to their own country full of courtesy to their royal host for his gallant bearing, but not disposed to renounce the chivalric associations of their native land. Edward then changed his design, and wished to establish an order of merit, that so "true nobility, after long and hazardous adventures, should not enviously be deprived of that honour, which it hath really deserved, and that active and hardy youth might not want a spur in the profession of virtue, which is to be esteemed glorious and eternal."[7] He accordingly assembled the nobility and knighthood of his realm, and showed them his intention of forming an especial brotherhood of knights, to be called Knights of the blue Garter, and of ordaining that a feast should be kept yearly at Windsor, on Saint George's day. The barons and cavaliers of England joyously agreed to his pleasure; for they were animated by this encouragement to military feats, and they saw that great amity and love would grow and increase among them. Twenty-five of the most valiant men of the kingdom were then chosen.[8]

The most noble order of Saint George, named the Garter, had, therefore, its origin in romance, in the wish to restore the chivalric dignity and splendour of ancient Britain. That view was afterwards blended with objects of policy which also were soon abandoned, and a fraternity of companions in arms was established for the promotion of chivalric honour. But though gallantry did not, as is commonly thought, actually found the order, yet perhaps it caused the union to receive the last clause of its title. Froissart describes the passion of Edward for the Countess of Salisbury, but is altogether silent on the story of her garter, a silence decisive of the incorrectness of the vulgar tale; for Froissart was intimately acquainted with the court of the English king, and his attention was always awake to circumstances of a gallant and romantic nature. It was quite in the spirit of those days for a band to be regarded as an excellent symbol of the friendly union which ought to exist between the knights companions; and if love had not been a chief feature in chivalry, the order might have been only called the Order of the Band. But gallantly came in, and claimed some share of chivalric honours. Ages of fastidious delicacy would have thought of a zone or girdle, but our simple minded ancestors regarded the garter as the wished for symbol. The well known motto of the Garter (_Honi soit qui mal y pense_) seems to apply, as Sir Walter Scott conjectures, to the misrepresentations which the French monarch might throw out respecting the order of the Garter, as he had already done concerning the festival of the round table.[9]

On the collar of the order something should be said. Warton appears to think that the earliest collar worn by the knights of the Garter was a duplication of the letter S, in allusion to the initial letter of the fair lady's name who, he supposes, gave rise to the fraternity of the most noble order of the Garter. But in truth no evidence exists that originally the members of the order wore any collar at all as knights of the Garter, though they certainly wore golden collars in their character of knights bachelors and knights banneret.

The favourite badge of the Lancastrian family was the letter S. sometimes single, and sometimes double, and the golden collar of esses became in time the general collar of English knights, and the silver collar of esses was worn by squires. The letter S. was the initial letter of the sentence, "_Soveigne vous de moy_." This was a very favourite motto in the fourteenth century, and was afterwards frequently introduced into collars which were formed of the fleur-de-souvenance, the forget-me-not of modern times. Whether at any period the golden collar of esses distinguished the knights of the Garter we know not. The collar worn in the present days, composed of garters with the image of Saint George dependent thereon, cannot be traced higher than the reign of Henry VIII.

The order was founded in honour of God, the Virgin Mary, Saint George the Martyr, and Saint Edward, king and confessor. The two saints were regarded as the particular patrons of the knights companions. The person that our ancestors understood by the name Saint George is a point of doubt. Some modern writers have called him a sufferer in the persecutions of Diocletian, and others the flagitious George of Cappadocia, the Arian successor of Athanasius in the archbishoprick of Alexandria.[10] It is equally difficult to discover how the saint became invested with military glory. But, leaving such questions to martyrologists and legend-makers, it is sufficient for our purpose to observe that a person called Saint George was in very early ages regarded as the tutelary saint of England, and became therefore very naturally one of the heads of the new military order. His brother-protector Saint Edward soon fell from his lofty station: but at the time concerning which I am writing he was high in fame, for Edward III. was wont to invoke both him and the other patron-saint with perfect impartiality; and when he was cutting his way through a press of knights, one stroke of his sword was accompanied by the exclamation, "Ha, Saint Edward," and another by the cry, "Ha, Saint George."

[Sidenote: Courtesy of Edward.]

To pursue, however, the general course of the chivalry of our Edward III. Nothing could be more beautiful than his courtesy on all occasions. It was particularly shown in his treatment of the hostages of the French king for the due performance of the treaty of Bretigny. He commanded his officers to deport themselves to those lords and their company courteously and favourably; and, accordingly, the French strangers sported without peril in London at their pleasure, and the great lords went hunting and hawking, and rode over the country, and visited ladies and damsels, without any control, so courteous and amiable was the King of England to them.[11] During all the tournaments that were held in his reign, he permitted his French, Scotch, and other prisoners, to share in the games, and sometimes he even furnished them with tourneying harness out of the royal armoury.[12]

[Sidenote: Prevalence of chivalric taste among all classes.]

The taste for chivalry among classes of people apparently little susceptible of its influence may be learned from the masquerading tournament of Edward; for knightly games must have been well known to the citizens of London, or the proclamation would not have been issued, that the lord mayor, aided by the court of aldermen and the sheriffs, would, on a certain day, hold a solemn tournament. The same taste was proved some years before, when the Black Prince entered London, with King John of France as his prisoner. The outsides of the houses were covered with hangings, wrought over with battles in tapestry, and the citizens exposed, in their shops, windows, and balconies, an incredible quantity of bows and arrows, shields, helmets, corselets, breast and back pieces, coats of mail, gauntlets, umbraces, swords, spears, battle-axes, armour for horses, and other armour.[13] It is also curious to notice, that on the evening preceding Candlemas-day, in the year 1377, one hundred and thirty citizens of London, for the entertainment of the young prince, Richard, son of the nation's idol, the Black Prince, rode, disguised as knights, from Newgate to Kennington, where the court resided, attended with an innumerable multitude, bearing waxen torches, and playing various instruments of music.[14]

As the principal wars of Edward's time were waged with a chivalric people, the circumstances which surrounded them favoured the developement of the chivalric qualities of the English character. I shall not repeat the political events of our glorious contests with France, nor describe, for the thousandth time, the battles of Cressy and Poictiers: but it may be mentioned, that the admirable marshalling of Edward's force on the field of Cressy was a high proof of his chivalric sageness, and mainly contributed to his victory over the forces of the King of France.

[Sidenote: English archers.]

The battles of Cressy and Poictiers, however, were not entirely gained by the chivalry of England: the bow was a most important weapon in the English army. It had characterised the Normans, and been mainly instrumental in winning for them the battle of Hastings. It was afterwards used by the small landholder, the tenant in soccage, and the general mass of the people, while the lance was the weapon of the lord and the knight. The bow was the emblem of freedom, and the pre-eminence of our archers shows that the political condition of England was superior, in the fourteenth century, to that of any continental nation.[15]

The arrow was of the remarkable length of a cloth-yard. The expression in the old ballad of Chevy-Chase,

"An arrow of a cloth-yard long Up to the head drew he,"

marks the usage of our early ancestors; and that sentence of Lear, in Shakspeare's play, "Draw me a clothier's yard," shows that in the sixteenth century the national character had not been lost. It was fostered by every proper means: by royal command archery was practised in towns on holidays, after church; while coits, cock-fighting, and amusements with the ball, were strictly prohibited. Other nations drew the bow with strength of arm, but Englishmen with their whole vigour: they laid their body in the bow[16], as an old writer has forcibly expressed the usage; and when in amusement they were exercising their skill, eleven-score yards was the least distance at which the mark was set up. No one could better shoot an arrow than a yeoman in the days of Edward III.: they were the most powerful attendants which our knights could boast of.

"A yeoman had he, and servants no mo, At that time, for him lust to ride so; And he was clad in coat and hood of green. A sheaf of peacocks' arwes bright and keen Under his belt he bare full thriftily. Well coude he dress his takel yemanly. His arwes drooped not with feathers lowe, And in his hand he bare a mighty bowe. A not-hed[17] had he with a brown visage. Of wood-craft coude he well all the usage. Upon his arm he bare a gay bracer, And by his side a sword and a bokeler; And on that other side a gay dagger, Harnessed well, and sharp as point of spere; A Cristofere on his breast of silver shene; An horn he bare, the baudrick was of green. A forster was he, soothly as I guess."[18]