They were godless fellows, those Normans, though they did come with a papal benediction. Previous to their appearance no deed was legal that was not marked by golden crosses and other sacred signs. The Northmen changèrent tout cela: they transferred estates simply by word of mouth, without writing or charter, and only with the sword, helmet, horn, or cup of the owner. Tenements, we are told, were conveyed with a spur, a bow, an arrow, or even a “body-scraper.” But this was soon found to be inconvenient; and then the conquerors introduced the custom of confirming deeds by wax impressions, made by the especial seal of each person, with the subscription thereto of three or four witnesses present. Now many a Norman had no other seal than the end of the pommel of his sword, and by such an instrument many a Saxon was pommelled out of his estate.
And what were these Normans, from whom so many amongst us are proud to trace their descent? They were—at least good numbers of them were—unbaptized thieves. Such certainly were the Mandevilles and Dandevilles, the Mohuns and Bohuns, the Bissets and Bassets. These were fellows who had converted themselves to Christianity fifty times in the course of the year, for the sake of the garment given each time to every convert. Those renowned swordsmen, the Dagotes, Bastards, Talbots, Laceys, Percys,—what were they but so many robbers who came hither penniless, and were very much astonished at the superabundance of their own good fortune?
Still lower in the scale must have been those Norman swordsmen whose names translated signify Bull-head, Ox-eye, Dirty-villain, Breechless, and the like. Nay, Wim (the) Carter, Hugh (the) Tailor, and Wim (the) Drummer stand recorded in the Monast. Anglic. as having been made Norman knights and noble by right of conquest. The ancestor of one of our proudest dukes was a plundering scoundrel, who, having no name at all, was known by that of the town in which he had been recruited,—St. Maur; and the ladies of the Somerset family do not appear ashamed of the descent, since they, not long ago, adopted the old name in preference to that of Seymour, which some of the branches of the family still retain.
Our Chaloners, Rochfords, and Chaworths can boast of no more honourable ancestry: they all spring from the sword-begirt loins of vagabonds, born or recruited in Châlons, Rochefort, and Cahors; and the honourable house of Sacheverele has no more glorious founder than a limping brigand, known by the name of “Saute Chevreau,” or “Saut de Chevreau,” because he hopped like a goat. Why, if antiquity of name be a thing to boast of, that of John Adams should be most admired among men; and Winnifred Jenkins is, in such case, more truly noble than the proudest Norman of them all.
I have noticed how possession was sometimes given with the sword. It was perhaps in allusion to that old custom that Jack Cade touched with his weapon that ancient piece of mystery, “London Stone.” He felt that his title was not good until that ceremony was performed; and, that done, “Now!” exclaimed that popular hater of national schools, “now is Mortimer Lord of London city!” His worship the Mayor carries, by his deputy, a similar weapon, as emblem of his sovereignty. The sword in the City shield has another signification. Some have supposed it was placed there in memory of the gallant chief magistrate who so summarily despatched Wat Tyler; but the sword was in the City shield long before that period. It was called the Sword of St. Paul; and the Domine dirige nos is an invocation that the magistracy may be taught to bear such sword like gentlemen and Christians. Is it because the prayer has been ineffectual that a new legend was constructed to account for the emblazoned weapon?
In the reign of Elizabeth there were two adjuncts which especially went to the making of a gallant—the ruff and the rapier. He whose ruff was the deepest and rapier the longest was the most unquestionable gallant; the consequence was, that apprentices robbed their masters in order to look like gallants. The vigorous Queen looked to it, however; and she placed grave citizens at the gates, with orders to cut off all ruffs of above a nail in depth, and break the points of all rapiers that were above a yard long. The scenes at the City gates must have been turbulent enough at those times, for it is not to be supposed that a “ruffian” would submit quietly to the cutting of his collar or the clipping of his sword.
In earlier times, in England, the sword and poniard too had something of sacredness attached to them: thus, when Athelstan was marching against the Danes and Scots, he paid a visit by the way to the shrine of St. John of Beverley. Upon the altar of the church there he deposited his poniard, vowing that if Heaven and the Saint would help him to a victory, he would redeem the arm at a suitable price. He gained the victory, and observed his vow; and for years the monks there blessed the good Athelstan for not only putting them above the law, but making them as rich as Crœsus. If he had not, they were men who would have taken their revenge; and they would not have scrupled, as the member of the Peace Society says in one of the comedies of Aristophanes, “to take his measure for a suit of Sardian scarlet,” or to have served his body as the heralds have the arms of the Duke of Buccleuch, which, as we all know, are “bruised by a baton sinister.”
The readers of Sterne will not need to be reminded that in ancient days in Brittany a nobleman, too poor to support his dignity, was allowed to make temporary sacrifice of the same by turning to commercial pursuits, after first surrendering his sword to the keeping of the magistracy. When fortune was achieved by honest industry, the old sword was once more hung upon the thigh. It was a wise custom, superior to that I have heard of in another country, where pauper aristocrats condescend to get rich by marrying merchants’ daughters, whose dowries they as profligately squander as though they had inherited them from their own fathers.
I have, in my ‘Table Traits,’ alluded to the use and abuse of the sword, and therefore will not repeat here incidents already related therein; I will merely remark that the best exemplification of the career of a mere swordsman is to be found in the history of fighting Fulwood, the lawyer. This hero, ever ready to draw his blade with or without reason, while standing (one night in the year of 1720), as was the custom of the pit, to see Mrs. Oldfield in ‘The Scornful Lady,’ remonstrated roughly with Beau Fielding for pushing against him. “Orlando the Fair” straightway clapped his hand to his sword; and the pugnacious lawyer, determined not to be behindhand, drew his blade, and passed it into the body of the Beau. While the latter, who was a mature gentleman of some half-century old, was exhibiting his wound, in order to excite the sympathy which he could not arouse in the breasts of the laughing ladies, Fulwood, flushed by victory, hastened to the playhouse in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where he picked a quarrel with Captain Cusack, who was a better swordsman than Orlando and who stopped the lawyer’s triumphs by straightway slaying him.
The sword-clubs were suppressed by royal proclamation in 1724. They had been denounced as unlawful three years previously. The object of the proclamation was to banish from civilized society the sword itself, in order thereby to check the practice of duelling, which was, at that period, exercised exclusively by means of the sword. The law became stringent, and judges merciless upon this point. This was made sufficiently clear in 1726, when Major Oneby killed Mr. Gower in a duel with swords, fought in a tavern, after a dispute over a game at hazard. The adversaries had fought without witnesses, in a room the door of which was closed. The Major, who had been both the aggressor and the challenger, mortally wounded Mr. Gower, who however declared that he had fallen in fair combat. A jury, nevertheless, found Oneby guilty of murder; the judges acquiesced in the verdict, but the Major escaped public execution by committing suicide.