Volume II Part 5 (2/2)
The Knights of the Sword, or Knights Bachelors, were created by the sheriffs of counties, by virtue of letters from the king commanding his officers to knight those persons, who, in consequence of their landed estates, were worthy of the honour; but when the other cla.s.s was to be enlarged, the king selected a certain number of the young n.o.bility and gentry, and he himself a.s.sisted at the ceremony.
Knights of the Bath always took precedence of knights bachelors; and as the superiority of knights of the Garter was shown by the circ.u.mstance, that on the installation of a knight there was a creation of knights of the Bath, so on any other occasion when knights of the Bath were made, there was, in honor of the circ.u.mstance, a creation of knights of the Sword.
The exact time when this distinction was first made between knights of the Bath and knights of the Sword has eluded the investigation of antiquaries, nor does it deserve a lengthened enquiry. It may be marked in the reign of Henry IV.[87], and was probably of earlier origin; and at the coronation of his son this feature of our ancient manners was fully displayed.
The King, with a n.o.ble and numerous train of lords spiritual and temporal, left his palace at Kingston-upon-Thames, and rode at a soft pace towards London. He was met and greeted by a countless throng of earls, barons, knights, squires, and other men of landed estate and consideration; and as he approached the city, a solemn procession of its clergy, and a gorgeous train of its merchants and tradesmen, hailed his approach. The King was conducted with every mark of honour to the Tower, where about fifty gallant young gentlemen of n.o.ble birth were waiting in expectation of receiving the honour of knighthood from the King, on occasion of the august ceremony of his coronation. The sovereign feasted his lords in the Tower; and these young candidates for chivalry, in testimony that they should not be compellable at any future time to perform the like service in the habit of esquires, served up the dishes at this royal festival according to the usage of chivalry in England; and immediately after the entertainment they retired to an apartment where dukes, earls, barons, and honourable knights, as their counsellors or directors, instructed them upon their behaviour, when they should become knights of the venerable order of the Bath.
The young candidates, according to custom, went into the baths prepared severally for them, performing their vigils and the other rites and exercises of chivalric practice. Much of the night was pa.s.sed in watching and prayer, the rest they slept away in rich golden beds. They arose on the first appearance of the next morning's dawn; and, after giving their beds to the domestic servants of the King's household, as their customary fee, they proceeded to hear ma.s.s. Their devotions concluded, they clad themselves in rich silk mantles, to whose left shoulders were attached a double cordon or strings of white silk, from which white ta.s.sels were pendent. This addition to the mantle was not regarded as a decoration, but a badge of gentle shame, which the knight was obliged to wear until some high emprise had been achieved by him. The proud calls of his knighthood were remissible, however, by his lady-love; for a fair and n.o.ble damsel could remove this stigma from his shoulder, at her own sweet will; for there were no limits to woman's power in the glorious days of chivalry.[88]
The young soldiers mounted n.o.ble war-steeds and rode to the gate of the royal palace, where, dismounting, each of them was supported by two knights, and conducted with all proper marks of honour and respect into the presence of the King, who, sitting in royal magnificence, the throne being surrounded with the great officers of state, promoted them severally to the honour of knighthood. A great festival was then given in their honour, and they were permitted to sit down in their rich silk mantles in the King's presence; but they were not allowed to taste any part of the entertainment; for it was a feature in the simple manners of our ancestors, that new made knights like new made wives ought to be scrupulously modest and abstemious.[89]
After the royal feast was done, the young cavaliers, divesting themselves of their mantles, put on rich robes ornamented with ensigns of dependence on the King. The next day, when the King rode to Westminster in much state and solemn order, all these young knights whom he had just honoured with the order of chivalry preceded him, riding with n.o.ble chevisance through the middle of the city; and so splendid was their appearance that the spectators (observes the old chronicler) seemed inebriated with joy.[90]
[Sidenote: Henry's love of chivalric books.]
It is a pleasing and convincing proof of the chivalric spirit of Harry Monmouth, that he commanded Lydgate to translate into English the Destruction of Troy, in order that the public mind might be restored to its ancient military tone. He wished that the remembrance of the valiant dead should live, that the worthiness and prowess of the old chivalry and true knighthood should be remembered again.[91] Accordingly, the youth of England were on fire, and honour's thought reigned solely in the breast of every man.
”They sell the pasture now to buy the horse; Following the mirror of all Christian kings, With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
For now sits Expectation in the air, And hides a sword, from heels unto the point, With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets, Promis'd to Harry and his followers.”[92]
[Sidenote: His chivalric bearing.]
Certainly the march to Calais (after the taking of Harfleur) was never exceeded in heroic bravery by any imaginary exploit in romance. The attenuated condition of his army forbad all immediate prosecution of his ambitious aspirations for the French crown; but a direct return to England did not accord with his high and courageous spirit; and, treating the soil of France as if it were his own, he resolved to march to Calais. He professed neither desire nor fear to meet his enemies; and he pursued his march with firm and grave steps, openly declaring to the French heralds the destination of his course. Political objects were suspended, but he secretly wished to raise the chivalric character of his people; and he had numbers and vigour yet remaining to have a joust to the utterance with his enemies. As at Poictiers so at Agincourt, the yeomen divided with the knights of England the glory of the conquest: but the battle of Agincourt was in itself more heroic, for the English themselves were the a.s.sailants, instead of, as in the former battle, waiting the attack.
Henry's disdain of the wish of having more men from England,--his n.o.ble cry, ”Banners, advance!” when his few thousands were ranged against all the proud chivalry of France,--his rendering himself conspicuous by his crown, his armour, and his splendid tunic,--his knighting some brave Welsh soldiers, his personal defenders, even as they lay expiring;--these circ.u.mstances, vouched for, as they are, by the most faithful chroniclers, apparently belong to the romance rather than to the history of chivalry.
After the battle he was as courteous[93] to his n.o.ble prisoners as the Black Prince had been on a similar occasion; and there was something very beautiful in his not permitting his battered helmet, with its royal crown, to be exhibited, during the customary show at his public entrance into London.[94]
[Sidenote: Commencement of the decline of chivalry.]
Henry V. was the last of our chivalric kings. Though he revived the fame of Edward III. and the Black Prince, yet immediately after his reign the glories of English chivalry began to wane.
In our subsequent wars in France, indeed, there were among our n.o.bility many knightly spirits,--the Warwicks, the Talbots, the Suffolks, the Salisburys, all worthy to have been the paladins of Charlemagne, the knights of Arthur's Round Table. But they went not with the character of the age; they opposed, rather than reflected it. Chivalry was no longer a national feature in our wars when there was no sovereign to fan the flame.
[Sidenote: The civil wars.]
[Sidenote: Caxton's lamentation.]
Henry VI. was a devotee, and Edward IV. a voluptuary. The civil wars in England operated as fatally upon the n.o.ble order of knighthood as the civil wars in France had done in that country. In those contests, far fiercer than national hostilities, there was a ruthlessness of spirit that mocked the gentle influences of chivalry. Accordingly it was asked, in the time of Edward IV., ”How many knights are there now in England that have the use and exercise of a knight? that is to say, that he knoweth his horse, and his horse him, ready to a point to have all things that belongeth to a knight; a horse that is according and broken after its kind, his armour and harness meet and fitting.”[95] ”I would,” continues the father of English printing, ”it pleased our sovereign lord that twice or thrice in a year he would cry jousts of peace, to the end that every knight should have horse and harness, and also the use and craft of a knight; and also to tourney, one against one, or two against two, and the best to have a prize, a diamond or jewel. The exercises of chivalry are not used and honoured as they were in ancient time, when the n.o.ble acts of the knights of England that used chivalry were renowned through the universal world. O ye knights of England, where is the custom and usage of n.o.ble chivalry? What do ye now but go to the bains and play at dice? Alas!
what do ye but sleep and take ease, and are all disordered from chivalry?
Leave this, leave it, and read the n.o.ble volumes of St. Graal, of Launcelot, of Tristrem, of Galaod, of Perceval, of Perceforest, of Gawayn, and many more. There shall ye see manhood, courtesy, and gentilness.”[96]
To this testimony of the decline of chivalry must be added the important fact that in 1439 people pet.i.tioned parliament for liberty to commute by a pecuniary fine the obligation to receive knighthood. This change of manners did not occur, as is generally supposed, in consequence of the use of gunpowder; for during the civil wars in England artillery was seldom and but partially used in the field, and, except at the great battle of Tewkesbury, in the year 1471, that arm of power had no effect on the general issue of battles. The cavalry and infantry were arranged in the old system: the lance was the weapon of those of gentle birth, while the bow and the bill were used by people of inferior state. Comines, who wrote about the close of the fifteenth century, says, that the archers formed the main strength of a battle.[97]
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