I will avail myself of this opportunity to state that at solemn ceremonies, like that above named, four of our kings of England were knighted by their own subjects. These were Edward III., Henry VI. and VII., and Edward VI. The latter was dubbed by the Lord Protector, who was himself empowered to perform the act by letters patent, under the great seal. At a very early period, priests, or prelates rather, sometimes conferred the honor on great public occasions. The Westminster Synod deprived them of this privilege in 1102.
It has been said that English knights wearing foreign orders, without permission of their own sovereign, are no more knights in reality than those stage knights of whom I have been treating. This, however, is questionable, if so great an authority as Coke be not in error. That great lawyer declares that a knight, by whomsoever created, can sue and be sued by his knightly title, and that such is not the case with persons holding other foreign titles, similar to those of the English peerage. Let me add that, among other old customs, it was once common in our armies for knighthood to be conferred previous to a battle, to arouse courage, rather than afterward, as is the case now—after the action, in order to reward valor. Even this fashion is more reasonable than that of the Czar, who claps stars and crosses of chivalry on the bosoms of beaten generals, to make them pass in Muscovy for conquerors.
In connection with the stage, knights have figured sometimes before, as well as behind the curtain. Of all the contests ever maintained, there was never, in its way a fiercer than that which took place between Sir William Rawlings, and young Tom Dibdin. The son of “tuneful Charlie,” born in 1771, and held at the font, as the “Lady’s Magazine” used to say, by Garrick, was not above four years of age when he played Cupid to Mrs. Siddons’ Venus, in Shakespeare’s Jubilee. It was hardly to be expected that after this and a course of attendance as choir-boy at St. Paul’s, he would settle down quietly to learn upholstery. This was expected of him by his very unreasonable relatives, who bound him apprentice to the city knight, Sir William Rawlings, a then fashionable upholsterer in Moorfields. The boy was dull as the mahogany he had to polish, and the knight could never make him half so bright in business matters. “Tom Dibdin,” thus used to remark the city cavalier—“Tom Dibdin is the stupidest hound on earth!” The knight, however, changed his mind when his apprentice, grown up to man’s estate, produced “The Cabinet.” Sir William probably thought that the opera was the upholstery business set to music. But before this point was reached, dire was the struggle between the knight and the page, who would not “turn over a new leaf.” When work was over, the boy was accustomed to follow it up with a turn at the play—generally in the gallery of the Royalty Theatre. On one of these occasions the knight followed him thither, dragged him out, gave him a sound thrashing, and, next morning, brought him before that awfully squinting official, John Wilkes. The struggle ended in a drawn battle, and Tom abandoned trade: and instead of turning out patent bedsteads, turned out the “English Fleet,” and became the father of “Mother Goose.” He would have shown less of his relationship to the family of that name, had he stuck to his tools; in the latter case he might have taken his seat as Lord Mayor, in a chair made by himself, and in those stirring times he might have become as good a knight as his master.
As it was, the refuse of knighthood had a hard time of it. He was actor of all work, wrote thousands of songs, which he sold as cheap as chips, and composed four pieces for Astley’s Theatre, for which he received fourteen pounds—hardly the price of a couple of arm-chairs. How he flourished and fell after this, may be seen in his biography. He had fortune within his grasp at one time, but he lost his hold when he became proprietor of a theatre. The ex-apprentice of the old knight-upholder could not furnish his own house with audiences, and the angry knight himself might have been appeased could his spirit have seen the condition into which “poor Tom” had fallen just previous to his death, some twenty years ago.
But I fear I have said more than enough about stage knights; may I add some short gossip touching real knights with stage ladies? Before doing so, I may just notice that the wedded wife of a bona fide knight once acted on the English boards under the chivalric name—and a time-honored one it is in Yorkshire—of her husband, Slingsby. Dame, or Lady Slingsby, who had been formerly a Mrs. Lee, was a favorite actress in the days of James II. She belonged to the Theatre Royal, resided in St. James’s parish, and was buried in Pancras church-yard in March 1693-4. In the list of the Slingsbys, baronets, of Scriven, given in Harborough’s “History of Knaresborough,” Sir Henry Slingsby, who died in 1692, is the only one of whose marriage no notice is taken. But to our stage ladies and gallant lovers.
STAGE LADIES AND THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY.
“Our happy love may have a secret church,
Under the church, as Faith’s was under Paul’s,
Where we may carry on our sweet devotion,
And the cathedral marriage keep its state,