SHAM KNIGHTS.
Between Tooting and Wandsworth lies a village of some celebrity for its sham knights or mayors—the village of Garrat. The villagers, some century ago, possessed certain common rights which were threatened with invasion. They accordingly made choice of an advocate, from among themselves, to protect their privileges. They succeeded in their object, and as the selection had been originally made at the period of a general election, the inhabitants resolved to commemorate the circumstance by electing a mayor and knighting him at each period of election for a new parliament. The resolution was warmly approved by all the publicans in the vicinity, and the Garrat elections became popular festivities, if not of the highest order, at least of the jolliest sort.
Not that the ceremony was without its uses. The politicians and wits of the day saw how the election might be turned to profit; and Wilkes, and Foote, and Garrick, are especially named as having written some of the addresses wherein, beneath much fustian, fun, and exaggeration of both fact and humor, the people were led to notice, by an Aristophanic process, the defects in the political system by which the country was then governed. The publicans, however, and the majority of the people cared more for the saturnalia than the schooling; and for some years the sham mayors of Garrat were elected, to the great profit, at least, of the tavern-keepers.
The poorer and the more deformed the candidate, the greater his chance of success. Thus, the earliest mayor of whom there was any record, was Sir John Harper, a fellow of infinite mirth and deformity, whose ordinary occupation was that of an itinerant vender of brick-dust. His success gave dignity to the brick-dust trade, and inspired its members with ambition. They had the glory of boasting that their friend and brother “Sir John” sat, when not sufficiently sober to stand, during two parliaments. A specimen of his ready wit is given in his remark when a dead cat was flung at him, on the hustings during the period of his first election. A companion remarked with some disgust upon the unpleasant odor from the animal. “That’s not to be wondered at,” said Sir John, “you see it is a pole-cat.”
But Sir John was ousted by an uglier, dirtier, more deformed, and merrier fellow than himself. The lucky personage in question was Sir Jeffrey Dunstan. He was a noted individual, hunched like Esop, and with as many tales, though not always with the like “morals.” He was a noted dealer in old wigs, for it was before men had fallen into what was then considered the disreputable fashion of wearing their own hair, under round hats. Sir John was a republican; but he did not despise either his office of mayor or his courtesy title of knight. Had he possessed more discretion and less zeal, he probably would have prospered in proportion. In the best, that is, in the quietest, of times, Sir Jeffrey could with difficulty keep his tongue from wagging. He never appeared in the streets with his wig-bag on his shoulder, without a numerous crowd following, whom he delighted with his sallies, made against men in power, whose weak points were assailable. The French Revolution broke out when Sir Jeffrey was mayor, and this gave a loose to his tongue, which ultimately laid him up by the heels. The knight grew too political, and even seditious, in his street orations, and he was in consequence committed to prison, in 1793, for treasonable practices. This only increased his popularity for a time, but it tamed the spirit of the once chivalrous mayor. When he ceased to be wittily bold, he ceased to be cared for by the constituents whose presence made the electors at Garrat. After being thrice elected he was successfully opposed and defeated, under a charge of dishonesty. The pure electors of Garrat could have borne with a political traitor; but as they politely said, they “could not a-bear a petty larcenist,” and Sir Jeffrey Dunstan was, metaphorically and actually presented “with the sack.”
When Manners Sutton ceased to be Speaker, he claimed, I believe, to be made a peer; on the plea that it was not becoming that he who had once occupied the chair, should ever be reduced to stand upon the floor, of the House of Commons. Sir Jeffrey Dunstan had something of a similar sense of dignity. Having fallen from the height of mayor of Garrat, what was then left for Sir Jeffrey? He got as “drunk as a lord,” was never again seen sober, and, in 1797, the year following that of his disgrace, the ex-mayor died of excess. So nice of honor was Sir Jeffrey Dunstan!
He was succeeded by Sir Harry Dimsdale, the mutilated muffin-seller, whose tenure of office was only brief, however brilliant, and who has the melancholy glory of having been the last of the illustriously dirty line of knighted mayors of Garrat. It was not that there was any difficulty in procuring candidates, but there was no longer the same liberality on the part of the peers and publicans to furnish a purse for them. Originally, the purse was made up by the inhabitants, for the purpose of protecting their collective rights. Subsequently, the publicans contributed in order that the attractions of something like a fair might be added, and therewith great increase of smoking and drinking. At that time the peerage did not disdain to patronize the proceeding, and the day of election was a holyday for thousands. Never before or since have such multitudes assembled at the well-known place of gathering; nor the roads been so blocked up by carts and carriages, honorable members on horses, and dustmen on donkeys. Hundreds of thousands sometimes assembled, and, through the perspiring crowd, the candidates, dressed like chimney-sweepers on May-day, or in the mock fashion of the period, were brought to the hustings in the carriages of peers, drawn by six horses, the owners themselves condescending to become their drivers.
The candidate was ready to swear anything, and each elector was required to make oath, on a brick-bat, “quod rem cum aliquâ muliere intra limites istius pagi habuissent.” The candidates figured under mock pseudonyms. Thus, at one election there were against Sir Jeffrey, Lord Twankum, Squire Blowmedown, and Squire Gubbings. His lordship was Gardener, the Garrat grave-digger, and the squires were in humble reality, Willis, a waterman, and Simmonds, a Southwark publican. An attempt was made to renew the old saturnalia in 1826, when Sir John Paul Pry offered himself as a candidate, in very bad English, and with a similarly qualified success. He had not the eloquent power of the great Sir Jeffrey, who, on presenting himself to the electors named his “estate in the Isle of Man” as his qualification; announced his intention of relieving the king in his want of money, by abolishing its use; engaged to keep his promises as long as it was his interest to do so, and claimed the favorable influence of married ladies, on the assurance that he would propose the annulling of all marriages, which, as he said, with his ordinary logic, “must greatly increase the influence of the crown, and vastly lower Indian bonds.” He intimated that his own ambition was limited to the governorship of Duck Island, or the bishopric of Durham. The latter appointment was mentioned for the purpose of enabling the usually shirtless, but for the moment court-dressed knight, to add that he was “fond of a clean shirt and lawn-sleeves.” He moreover undertook to show the governors of India the way which they ought to be going, to Botany Bay; and to discover the longitude among the Jews of Duke’s Place.
Courtesy was imperative on all the candidates toward each other. When Sir Jeffrey Dunstan opposed Sir William Harper, there were five other candidates, namely—“Sir William Blaze, of high rank in the army—a corporal in the city train-bands; Admiral Sir Christopher Dashwood, known to many who has (sic) felt the weight of his hand on their shoulders, and showing an execution in the other. Sir William Swallowtail, an eminent merchant, who supplies most of the gardeners with strawberry baskets; Sir John Gnawpost, who carries his traffic under his left arm, and whose general cry is ‘twenty-five if you win and five if you lose;’ and Sir Thomas Nameless, of reputation unmentionable.” Sir John Harper was the only knight who forgot chivalrous courtesy, and who allowed his squire in armor to insult Sir Jeffrey. But this was not done with impunity. That knight appealed to usage, compelled his assailant to dismount, drop his colors, walk six times round the hustings, and humbly ask pardon.
Sir William Swallowtail, mentioned above, “was one William Cock, a whimsical basket-maker of Brentford, who, deeming it proper to have an equipage every way suitable to the honor he aspired to, built his own carriage, with his own hands, to his own taste. It was made of wicker work, and was drawn by four, high, hollow-backed horses, whereon were seated dwarfish boys, whimsically dressed, for postillions. In allusion to the American War, two footmen, tarred and feathered, rode before the carriage. The coachman wore a wicker hat, and Sir William himself, from the seat of his vehicle, maintained his mock dignity, in grotesque array, amid unbounded applause.” It should be added that Foote, who witnessed the humors of the election more than once, brought Sir Jeffrey upon the stage in the character of Doctor Last; but the wretched fellow, utterly incapable and awfully alarmed, was driven from the stage by the hisses of the whole house. Let us now look abroad for a few “Shams.”
If foreign lands have sent no small number of pseudo-chevaliers to London, they have also abounded in many by far too patriotic or prudent to leave their native land. The Hôtel Saint Florentin, in Paris, was the residence of the Prince Talleyrand, but before his time it was the stage and the occasional dwelling-place of an extraordinary actor, known by the appellation of the Chevalier, or the Count de St. Germain. He was for a time the reigning wonder of Paris, where his history was told with many variations; not one true, and all astounding. The popular voice ascribed to him an Egyptian birth, and attributed to him the power of working miracles. He could cure the dying, and raise the dead; could compose magic philters, coin money by an impress of his index finger; was said to have discovered the philosopher’s stone, and to be able to make gold and diamonds almost at will. He was, moreover, as generous as he was great, and his modest breast was covered with knightly orders, in proof of the gratitude of sovereigns whom he had obliged. He was supposed to have been born some centuries back, was the most gigantic and graceful impostor that ever lived, and exacted implicit faith in his power from people who had none in the power of God.
The soirées of the Hôtel St. Florentin were the admiration of all Paris, for there alone, this knight-count of many orders appeared to charm the visiters and please himself. His prodigality was enormous, so was his mendacity. He was graceful, witty, refined, yet not lacking audacity when his story wanted pointing, and always young, gave himself out for a Methuselah.
The following trait is seriously told of him, and is well substantiated. “Chevalier,” said a lady to him one night, at a crowded assembly of the Hôtel St. Florentin, “do you ever remember having, in the course of your voyages, encountered our Lord Jesus Christ?” “Yes,” replied the profane impostor, without hesitation and raising his eyes to heaven. “I have often seen and often spoken to Him. I have frequently had occasion to admire his mildness, genius, and charity. He was a celestial being; and I often prophesied what would befall Him!” The hearers, far from being shocked, only continued to ply the count with other questions. “Did you ever meet with the Wandering Jew?” asked a young marquiss. “Often!” was the reply; and the count added with an air of disdain:—“that wretched blasphemer once dared to salute me on the high-road; he was then just setting out on his tour of the world, and counted his money with one hand in his pocket, as he passed along.” “Count,” asked a Chevalier de St. Louis, “who was the composer of that brilliant sonata you played to-night, on the harpsichord?” “I really can not say. It is a song of victory, and I heard it executed for the first time on the day of the triumph of Trajan.” “Will you be indiscreet, dear count, for once,” asked a newly-married baronne, “and tell us the names of the three ladies whom you have the most tenderly loved?” “That is difficult,” said the honest knight with a smile, “but I think I may say that they were Lucretia, Aspasia, and Cleopatra.”
The gay world of Paris said he was, at least two thousand years old; and he did not take the pains to contradict the report. There is reason to suppose that he was the son of a Portuguese Jew, who had resided at Bordeaux. His career was soon ended.
There was a far more respectable chevalier in our own country to whom the term of Sham Knight can hardly apply; but as he called himself “Sir John,” and that title was not admitted in a court of law, some notice of him may be taken here.
There was then in the reign of George III., a knight of some notoriety, whose story is rather a singular one. When Sir John Gallini is now spoken of, many persons conclude that this once remarkable individual received the honors of knighthood at the hands of King George. I have been assured so by very eminent operatic authorities, who were, nevertheless, completely in error. Sir John Gallini was a knight of George III.’s time, but he was so created by a far more exalted individual; in the opinion, at least, of those who give to popes, who are elective potentates, a precedence over kings, who are hereditary monarchs. The wonder is that Gallini was ever knighted at all, seeing that he was simply an admirable ballet-dancer. But he was the first dancer who ever received an encore for the dexterous use of his heels. The Pope accordingly clapped upon them a pair of golden spurs, and Gallini was, thenceforth, Cavaliere del Sperone d’Oro. Such a knight may be noticed in this place.
Gallini came to England at a time when that part of the world, which was included in the term “people of quality,” stood in need of a little excitement. This was in 1759, when there was the dullest of courts, with the heaviest of mistresses, and an opera, duller and heavier than either. Gallini had just subdued Paris by the magic of his saltatory movements. He thence repaired to London, with his reputation and slight baggage. He did not announce his arrival. It was sufficient that Gallini was there. He had hardly entered his lodgings when he was engaged, on his own terms. He took the town by storm. His pas seul was pronounced divine. The “quality” paid him more honor than if he had invented something useful to his fellow-men. He could not raise his toe, without the house being hushed into silent admiration. His entrechats were performed amidst thundering echoes of delight; his “whirls” elicited shrieks of ecstacy; and when he suddenly checked himself in the very swiftest of his wild career and looked at the house with a complacent smile, which seemed to say—“What do you think of that?” there ensued an explosion of tumultuous homage, such as the spectators would have not vouchsafed to the young conqueror of Quebec. Gallini, as far as opera matters were concerned, was found to be the proper man in the proper place. For four or five years he was despotic master of the ballet. He was resolved to be master of something else.
There was then in London a Lady Elizabeth Bertie. Her father, the Earl of Abingdon, then lately deceased, had, in his youth, married a Signora Collino, daughter to a “Sir John Collins.” The latter knight was not English, but of English descent. His son, Signor Collino, was a celebrated player of the lute in this country. He was indeed the last celebrated player on that instrument in England.
Gallini then, the very head of his profession, ranking therein higher than the Abingdons did in the peerage, was rather condescending than otherwise, when he looked upon the Earl of Abingdon as his equal. The earl whom he so considered was the son of the one who had espoused the Signora Collino, and Lady Elizabeth Bertie was another child of the same marriage. When Gallini the dancer, therefore, began to think of proposing for the hand of that lady, he was merely thinking of marrying the niece of an instrumental performer. Gallini did not think there was derogation in this; but he did think, vain, foolish fellow that he was, that such a union would confer upon him the title of “my lord.”
Gallini was a gentleman, nevertheless, in his way—that is, both in manners and morals. Proud indeed he was, as a peacock, and ambitious as a “climbing-boy,” desirous for ever of being at the top, as speedily as possible, of every branch of his profession. He was the “professor of dancing” in the Abingdon family, where his agreeable person, his ready wit, his amiability, and the modesty beneath which he hid a world of pretension, rendered him a general favorite. He was very soon the friend of the house; and long before he had achieved that rank, he was the very particular friend of Lady Elizabeth Bertie. She loved her mother’s soft Italian as Gallini spoke it; and in short she loved the Italian also, language and speaker. Lady and Signor became one.
When the match became publicly known the “did you evers?” that reached from box to box and echoed along the passages of the opera-house were deafening. “A lady of quality marry a dancer!” Why not, when maids of honor were held by royal coachmen as being bad company for the said coachman’s sons? It was a more suitable match than that of a lady of quality with her father’s footman.
Gallini happened to be in one of the lobbies soon after his marriage, where it was being loudly discussed by some angry beauties. In the midst of their ridicule of the bridegroom he approached, and exclaimed, “Lustrissima, son io! Excellent lady, I am the man!” “And what does the man call himself?” asked they with a giggle, and doubtless also with reference to the story of the bridegroom considering himself a lord by right of his marriage with a “lady”—“what does the man call himself?” “Eccelenza,” replied Gallini with a modest bow, “I am Signor Giovanni Gallini, Esquire.” In the midst of their laughter he turned upon his heel, and went away to dress in flesh-colored tights, short tunic, and spangles.
The marriage was not at first an unhappy one. There were several children, but difficulties also increased much faster than the family. Not pecuniary difficulties, for Gallini was a prudent man, but class difficulties. The signor found himself without a properly-defined position, or what is quite as uneasy probably in itself, he was above his proper position, without being able to exact the homage that he thought was due to him. The brother-in-law of the earl was in the eyes of his own wife, only the dancing-master of their children. Considering that the lady had condescended to be their mother, she might have carried the condescension a little farther, and paid more respect to the father. Dissension arose, and in a tour de mains family interferences rendered it incurable. The quarrel was embittered, a separation ensued, and after a tranquil union of a few years, there were separate households, with common ill-will in both.
He felt himself no longer a “lord,” even by courtesy, but he resolved to be what many lords have tried to be, in vain, or who ruined themselves by being, namely, proprietor and manager of the opera-house. This was in 1786, by which time he had realized a fortune by means of much industry, active heels, good looks, capital benefits, monopoly of teaching, prudence, temperance, and that economy, which extravagant people call parsimony. This fortune, or rather a portion of it, he risked in the opera-house—and lost it all, of course. He commenced his career with as much spirit as if he had only been the steward of another man’s property; and he made engagements in Italy with such generosity and patriotism, that the Pope having leisure for a while to turn his thoughts from divinity to dancing, became as delighted with Gallini as Pio Nono was with Fanny Cerito. We are bound to believe that his holiness was in a fit of infallible enthusiasm, when he dubbed Gallini, Knight of the Golden Spur. The latter returned to London and wrote himself down “Sir John.” Cards were just come into fashion, to enable people to pay what were called “visites en blanc,” and “Sir John Gallini,” was to be seen in every house where the latter had friend or acquaintance. His portrait was in all the shops, with this chivalric legend beneath it, and there are yet to be seen old opera libretti with a frontispiece exhibiting to an admiring public the effigies of “Sir John Gallini.”
The public liked the sound, liked the man, and sanctioned the title, by constantly applying it to the individual, without any mental reserve. They had seen so many fools made knights that they were glad to see a spirited man make one of himself, by application of “Sir” to a papally-conferred title. The law, however, no more allowed it than it did that of the Romanist official who got presented at court as “Monsignore something,” and whose presentation was cancelled as soon as the pleasant trick was discovered. Gallini, however, continued in the uninterrupted title until circumstances brought him, as a witness, into the presence of Lord Kenyon. When the Italian opera-dancer announced himself in the hearing of that judge as Sir John Gallini, the sight of the judge was what Americans call “a caution.” His lordship looked as disgusted as Lord Eldon used to do, when he heard an Irish Romanist Bishop called by a territorial title. As far as the wrath of Lord Kenyon could do it, metaphorically, the great judge un-sir-John’d Sir John and chopped off his golden spurs in open court. Gallini was so good-natured and popular, that the public opinion would not confirm the opinion of the judge, and Sir John remained Sir John, in the popular mouth, throughout the kingdom.
He was growing rich enough to buy up half the knights in the country. He built the music-rooms in Hanover Square, for Bach and Abel’s subscription concerts. That is, he built the house; and let it out to any who required any portion of it, for any purpose of music, dancing, exhibiting, lecturing, or any other object having profit in view. He lodged rather than lived in it himself, for he had reserved only a small cabinet for his own use, magnificently sacrificing the rest of the mansion for the use of others, who paid him liberally for such use. Therewith, Sir John continued his old profession as teacher as well as performer, manager at home as well as at the theatre; wary speculator, saving—avaricious, as they said who failed to cheat him of his money on faith of illusory promises, with an admirable eye for a bargain, and admirable care for the result of the bargain after he had concluded it.
Everything went as merrily with him as it did with Polycrates, and ill-fortune and he seemed never to be acquainted, till one fatal night in 1789, the Opera House was burned to the ground, and the tide that had been so long flowing was now thought to be on the ebb. Sir John was too heroic to be downcast, and he did what many a hero would never even have thought of doing, nor, indeed, any wise man either. He put down thirty thousand pounds in hard cash toward the rebuilding of the opera-house, sent to Italy for the best architectural plans, left no means unemployed to erect a first rate theatre, and worked for that object with as much integrity as if the safety of the universe depended on the building of an opera-house in the Haymarket. What the public lost in one night was thus being made good to them by another.
Meanwhile fashion was in a deplorable state of musical destitution. What was to become of London without an opera? How could the world, the infinitesimal London world, exist without its usual allowance of roulades and rigadoons? Our knight was just the champion to come in beneficially at such an extremity. He opened the little theatre in the Haymarket, and nobody went to it. Fashion turned up its nose in scorn, and kept away; nay, it did worse, it acted ungratefully, and when some speculators established an opera at the Pantheon, Fashion led the way from the Haymarket, and a host of followers went in her train to Oxford street. “I will victoriously bring her back to her old house,” said Sir John. The knight was gallant-hearted, but he did not know that he had other foes besides Fashion.
Sir John got into difficulties through law, lawyers, and false friends. He ruled as monarch at the opera-house, only to fall, with ruin. But he was not a man to be dismayed. His courage, zeal, and industry, were unbounded. He applied all these to good purpose, and his life was not only a useful but an honorable and a prosperous one. It ended, after extending beyond the ordinary allotted time of man, calmly, yet somewhat suddenly; and “Sir John” Gallini died in his house in Hanover Square, leaving a large fortune, the memory of some eccentricities, and a good name and example, to his children. For my part, I can never enter the ancient concert-rooms in Hanover Square, without wishing a “Requiescat!” to the knight of the Golden Spur, by whom the edifice was constructed.
If Sir John Gallini, the dancer, could boast of having been knighted by a pope, Crescentini, the singer, could boast of having been knighted by an emperor. He received this honor at the hands of Napoleon I. He had previously been accustomed to compliments from, or in presence of, emperors. Thus, in 1804, at Vienna, he sang the Ombra adorata in the character of Romeo, with such exquisite grace and tenderness, that, on one occasion, when he had just finished this admirable lyric piece, the whole court forming part of his audience, two doves descended from the clouds, bearing him a crown of laurels, while on every side, garlands and flowers were flung upon the enchanted and enchanting warbler. The Austrian Emperor paid him more honor than his predecessor had ever paid to the Polish king who saved the empire from the Turks. The reputation of Crescentini gained for him an invitation, in 1809, to the imperial court of France. He played in company with Grassini, the two representing Romeo and Juliet. The characters had never been better represented, and Talma, who was present, is said to have wept—an on dit which I do not credit, for there is not only nothing to cry at in the Italian characters, but Talma himself was in no wise addicted to indulgence in the melting mood, nor had he even common courtesy for his own actual Juliet. But the great actor was pleased, and the great emperor was delighted; so much so, that he conferred an honor on Crescentini which he would never grant to Talma—made a chevalier of him. It is true that Talma desired to be made a knight of the Legion of Honor; but the emperor would not place on the breast of a tragedian that cross which was the reward, then, only of men who had played their parts well, in real and bloody tragedies. The French tragedian declined the honor that was now accorded to Crescentini, whom the emperor summoned to his box, and decorated him with the insignia of the knight of the Iron Crown. The singing chevalier was in ecstacies. But the Juliet of the night had more cause to be so, for to her, Napoleon presented a draft on the Treasury, for 20,000 francs. “It will be a nice little dower for one of my nieces,” said the ever-generous Grassini to one of her friends, on the following day. Several years after this, a little niece, for whom she had hitherto done little, came to her, with a contralto voice, and a request for assistance. After hearing her sing, Grassini exclaimed, “You have no contralto voice, and need small help. You will have, with care, one of the finest mezzo-sopranos in the world. Your throat will be to you a mine of gold, and you may be both rich and renowned, my dear Giulietta Grisi.” The niece has excelled the aunt.
Knights of the shire are but sham knights now, and they originally sprung from a revolutionary movement. Previous to the reign of Henry III. the people had no voice in the selection of their legislators. In that king’s reign, however, the legislators were at loggerheads. Simon de Montfort, the aristocratic head of a popular party, was opposed to the king; and the great earl and his friends being fearful of being outvoted in the next parliament, succeeded in procuring the issue of a writ in the name of the king, who was then their prisoner, directing the sheriffs of each county to send two knights, and the authorities in cities and boroughs to send citizens and burgesses, to represent them in parliament. This was a fundamental change of a long-established usage. It was, in fact, a revolution; and the foundation at least of that form of a constitution on which our present constitutional substantiality has been erected.
When the king became emancipated, however, although he continued to summon “barons and great men,” he never during his reign issued a writ for the election of knights of the shire. His son, Edward I., summoned the greater and lesser barons, or his tenants in chief, according to the old usage. This he did during, at least, seven years of his reign. The last were not barons, but they were summoned as “barons’ peers, and all these attended in their own persons,” and not as representatives of the people. In the reign of John, indeed, the people’s voice had been heard, but it may be stated generally, that until the forty-ninth of Henry III., the constituent parts of the great council of the nation was composed solely of the archbishops and bishops, the earls, barons, and tenants in capite.
It is a singular fact that, in the early elections, the knights of the shire were elected by universal suffrage; and so, indeed, they are now, in a certain way, as I shall explain, after citing the following passage from Hallam’s State of Europe during the Middle Ages: “Whoever may have been the original voters for county representatives, the first statute that regulates their election, so far from limiting the privilege to tenants in capite, appears to place it upon a very large and democratical foundation. For (as I rather conceive, though not without much hesitation) not only all freeholders, but all persons whatever present at the county court, were declared, or rendered, capable of voting for the knight of their shire. Such at least seems to be the inference from the expressions of 7 Henry IV., c. 15, ‘all who are there present, as well suitors duly summoned for that cause, as others.’ And this acquires some degree of confirmation from the later statute 8 Henry VI., c. 7, which, reciting that ‘elections of knights of shires have now, of late, been made by very great, outrageous, and excessive number of people dwelling within the same counties, of the which most were people of small substance and of no value,’ confines the elective franchise to freeholders of lands or tenements to the value of forty shillings.”
The original summons to freeholders was, without doubt, by general proclamation, so that, as Mr. Hallam remarks, “it is not easy to see what difference there could be between summoned and unsummoned suitors. And if the words are supposed to glance at the private summonses to a few friends, by means of which the sheriffs were accustomed to procure a clandestine election, one can hardly imagine that such persons would be styled ‘duly summoned.’ It is not unlikely, however,” adds Mr. Hallam, “that these large expressions were inadvertently used, and that they led to that inundation of voters without property which rendered the subsequent act of Henry VI. necessary. That of Henry IV. had itself been occasioned by an opposite evil, the close election of knights by a few persons in the name of the county.”
The same writer proceeds to observe that the consequence of the statute of Henry IV. was not to let in too many voters, or to render election tumultuous in the largest of English counties, whatever it might be in others. Prynne, it appears, published some singular indentures for the county of York, proceeding from the sheriffs, during the intervals between the acts of the fourth and sixth Henry. These “are selected by a few persons calling themselves the attorneys of some peers and ladies, who, as far as it appears, had solely returned the knights of that shire. What degree of weight,” says Mr. Hallam, “these anomalous returns ought to possess, I leave to the reader.”
I have said that the universal suffrage system in the election of these knights (and indeed of others) as far as it can be carried out, in allowing all persons present to have a voice, is still strictly in force. Appeal is made to the popular assembly as to the choice of a candidate. The decision is duly announced by the highest authority present, and then the rejected candidate may, if he thinks proper, appeal from the people present to those who are legally qualified to vote. The first ceremony is now a very unnecessary one, but it is, without doubt, the relic of a time when observation of it bore therewith a serious meaning.
From parliament to the university is no very wide step. Sir Hugh Evans and Sir Oliver Martext were individuals who, with their titles, are very familiar to the most of us. The knightly title thus given to clergymen, was not so much by way of courtesy, as for the sake of distinction. It was “worn” by Bachelors of Arts, otherwise “Domini,” to distinguish them from the Masters of Arts, or “Magistri.” Properly speaking, the title was a local one, and ought not to have been used beyond the bounds of the University: but as now-a-days with the case of “captains” of packet-boats, they are also captains at home; so, in old times, the “Sir” of the University was Sir Something Somebody, everywhere.
We laugh at the French for so often describing our knights only by their surnames, as “Sir Jones.” This, however, is the old English form as it was used at Cambridge. The Cambridge “Sirs” were addressed by Christian and surname in their livings, and in documents connected therewith. This practice continued till the title itself was abandoned some time after the Reformation. The old custom was occasionally revived by the elderly stagers, much to the astonishment of younger hearers. Thus when Bishop Mawson of Llandaff was on one occasion at court, he encountered there a reverend Bachelor of Arts, Fellow of Bene’t College, and subsequently Dean of Salisbury. His name was Greene. The bishop, as soon as he saw the “bachelor” enter the drawing-room, accosted him loudly in this manner: “How do you do, Sir Greene? When did you leave college, Sir Greene?” Mr. Greene observing the astonishment of those around him, took upon himself to explain that the bishop was only using an obsolete formula of bygone times. The most recent courtesy title that I can remember, was one given to a blind beggar who was very well known in the vicinity of Trinity College, Dublin, where, indeed, he had been a student some five-and-thirty years ago. He was invariably styled “Domine John,” and he could return a suitable answer in good Latin, to the query, Quo modo vales?—or to any other query.
“Vale!” is indeed what I ought to utter to the courteous reader; nor will I detain him longer—supposing he has kindly borne with me thus far—than with one brief chapter more, which, being miscellaneous, I may not inaptly call “Pieces of Armor.”