Knights and their days

by Dr. Doran

Henry Beauclerc was more of a scholar than a knight, without, however, being so very much of the first. The English-born prince was far less chivalrous of spirit than his former brother Robert; that is, if not less brave, he was less generous, especially to a foe. When he was besieged on St. Michael’s Mount by Robert, and reduced to such straits that he was near dying of thirst, Robert supplied him with water; an act for which Rufus called the doer of it a fool; but as poor Robert nobly remarked, the quarrel between him and their brother was not of such importance that he should be made to perish of thirst. “We may have occasion,” said he, “for a brother hereafter; but where shall we find one, if we now destroy this?” Henry would hardly have imitated conduct so chivalrously generous. He was more knightly in love, and it is recorded to his honor, that he married Matilda, daughter of Malcolm, King of Scotland, for pure love, and not for “filthy lucre,” preferring to have her without a marriage portion, than to wait till one could be provided for her. This would have been praiseworthy enough had Henry not been, subsequently, like many other persons who marry in haste—for ever looking for pecuniary assistance from other resources than his own. He especially lacked too what was enjoined on every knight, a love of truth. His own promises were violated with alacrity, when the violation brought profit. He wanted, too, the common virtue of fidelity, which men of knightly rank were supposed to possess above all others. The fact that fifteen illegitimate children survived him, speaks little for his respect for either of his consorts, Matilda of Scotland, or Adelicia of Louvain. Generally speaking, however, the character of the royal scholar may be described in any terms, according to the view in which it is taken. With some historians, he is all virtue, with others all vice.

Stephen had more of the knightly character about him. He was an accomplished swordsman, and loved the sound of battle as became the spirit of the times, which considered the king as the first knight in the land. He had as little regard as Henry for a sense of justice when disposed to seize upon that to which he had no right, but he was incontestably brave, as he was indefensibly rash. Stephen received the spurs of knighthood from his uncle, Henry I., previous to the battle of Tinchebray; and in that fray he so bore himself as to show that he was worthy of the honor that had been conferred upon him. But Stephen was as faithless to his marriage vow as many other belted knights, and Matilda of Boulogne had to mourn over the faithlessness of one who had sworn to be faithful. It is said, too, of this king that he always went into battle terribly arrayed. This was in the spirit of those birds that raise their crests to affright their enemies.

Henry II., like his brother kings, we can only consider in his character of knight. In this character he is almost unexceptionable, which is more than can be said of him generally as king or as man. He was brave and generous, two chief characteristics of knighthood. He it was who abolished that burdensome and unprofitable feudal military service, which brought the barons or military tenants into the field, for forty days. The camp consequently abounded in unskilful and disorderly men. Henry accordingly introduced the practice of commuting their military service for money, by levying scutages from his baronies and knights-fees, or so much for every shield or bearer of it that should attend but had purchased exemption.

Henry II., not only loved knightly practice himself, but he loved to see his sons exercising knight-errantry, and wandering about in disguise from court to court, displaying their prowess in tournaments, and carrying off prizes from all adversaries. To the stories of these adventures of his by no means exemplary sons he would listen with delight. He was himself, however, a sire who set but indifferent example to his children; and his two sons, of whom fair Rosamond was the mother, were brought up and educated with his children by Eleanor. He received much knightly service and true affection from his illegitimate children. William, Earl of Salisbury, is known by his chivalric surname of “Longsword,” but Geoffrey, Bishop of Lincoln, the second son of Henry and Rosamond, was not the less a knight for being a bishop before he was twenty. It was this prelate who, at the head of an armed force put down the first great northern insurrection. He was on his triumphant way back, at the head of one hundred and forty knights, when he was met by his royal sire, who embraced him warmly, exclaiming the while, “Thou alone art my legitimate son, the rest are all bastards.” That he himself could endure much was evinced when he submitted to correction at the shrine of Becket. He was flagellated by the prelates, abbots, bishop, and eighty monks; and the first refreshment he took after the long penance, was some water in which a portion of Becket’s blood was mingled. His claim to be considered chivalrous never suffered, in the mind of the church at least, because of this humiliating submission.

But in the dissensions which led to this humiliation, the church incurred perhaps more disgrace than the king. Nothing could possibly be more disgraceful than the conduct of the pope and the diplomacy of the Roman government throughout the continuation of the quarrel between Becket and the king. Double-dealing, atrocious deceit, and an unblushing disregard for truth, marked every act of him who was looked upon as the spiritual head of Christendom. Comparing Becket with the king, it is impossible to avoid coming to the conclusion that, in many of the requirements of knighthood, he was superior to the sovereign. His death, that is the way in which he met it, was sublime. Throughout the great quarrel, of which that death was a consequence, Becket never, like Henry, in his moments of defeat and discouragement, gave way to such impotent manifestations of rage as were shown by his royal antagonist. The latter forgot the dignity, not only of knight, but of manhood, when he was seen casting his cap violently to the earth, flinging away his belt, tearing his clothes from his body, and dragging the silk coverlet from his bed, on which, in presence of his captains, he rolled himself like a maniac, grasping the mattress in his mouth, and gnawing the wool and the horsehair which he drew out with his teeth.

Richard I. has a brilliant reputation as a knight, and if valor were the only virtue required, he would not be undeserving of the pre-eminence which is claimed for him. But this was his sole virtue. Of the other qualifications for, or qualities of chivalry, he knew nothing, or little cared for them. He was faithless in love; regardless of his pledged word; cruel, extravagant, dishonest; and not even always brave, when away from the clamor and excitements of war. But John lacked the one rough quality of Richard, and was not even brave—that is to say, he was not distinguishedly brave. When he stole away Isabella of Angoulême from her first lover, Sir Hugh de Lusignan, it was not done with the dashing gallantry of Young Lochinvar. John, in fact, was a shabby and recreant knight; and when stout Sir Hugh challenged him to single combat, because of his crime of abduction, John offered to accept it by deputy, and to fight also by deputy. Sir Hugh knew the craven prince thoroughly, and truly enough remarked that the deputy would be a mere assassin, and he would have nothing to do with either principal or representative. John kept the lady; and, if there be any persons curious to see how niggardly he kept her, they are referred to the duly-published chronicles wherein there are full details.

Henry III. was the most pacifically-minded of the kings of England who had hitherto reigned. He had little of the knight about him, except the courtesy, and he could occasionally forget even that. Devotion to the fair, too, may fairly be reckoned among his knightly qualities; but he lacked the crowning virtue of fidelity. He wooed many, was rejected by several, and jilted the few who believed in him. He exhibited, it must be allowed, a chivalrous generosity in at last marrying Eleanor of Castile, without dowry; but he was not the more true to her on that account. Mild as he was by nature, he was the especial favorite of the most warlike of the orders of knighthood—the Templars. They mourned for him when dead, as though he had been the very flower of chivalry, and the most approved master of their order. They buried him, too, with a pomp which must have drawn largely even on their well-lined purses, and the Knights of the Temple deposited the king in the tomb of the most pious of monarchs—Edward the Confessor. It is difficult to say why the Templars had such love for the weak king, for he was not an encourager of knightly associations and observations. At the same time he may be said to have lowered the estimation in which knighthood had been held, by making the honor itself cheap, and sometimes even less than that—unwelcome. Henry III. issued a writ in the twenty-ninth year of his reign, summoning tenants in chief to come and receive knighthood at his hands: and tenants of mesne lords to be knighted by whomsoever they pleased. It may be believed that this last permission was abused, for soon after this period “it became an established principle of our law that no subject can confer knighthood except by the king’s authority.” So says Hallam. The most extraordinary law or custom of this reign with respect to chivalry was, that any man who possessed an annual income of fifteen pounds derived from land, was to be compelled to receive the honor of knighthood.

The successor of Henry, Edward I., was of a far more knightly quality. Faithful in love, intrepid in battle, generous to the needy, and courteous to all—except when his temper was crossed—he may pass muster as a very respectable knight. He was active and strong, and, with one hand on the back of his steed, could vault, at a single bound, into the saddle. Few men cared less for finery. He was even reproved on one occasion by a bishop, for being dressed beneath his dignity of either king or knight. “Father,” said Edward, “what could I do more in royal robes than in this plain gaberdine?”

Edward would have acted little in the spirit of a true knight if he had really acted toward the Bards, according to the cruel fashion recorded in history. I am inclined to believe with Davies, in his “Mythology of the Druids,” that this king has been calumniated in this respect. “There is not the name,” says Davies, “of a single bard upon record who suffered either by his hand or by his orders. His real act was the removal of that patronage, under which the bards had, hitherto, cherished the heathenish superstition of their ancestors, to the disgrace of our native princes.” This king showed a feeling common with many knights, that however indifferently they might look living, in rusty armor or faded mantle, they should wear a decent and comely covering when dead. Thus he ordered that every year his tomb should be opened, and his remains covered with a new cere-cloth or pall. It was a pride akin to that of Mrs. Oldfield’s, in the days of our grandmothers, who was buried in a Brussels lace head-dress, a Holland shift with tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, and a pair of new kid gloves. The same weakness of nature marked both the tragedy-queen and the actual king; and it marks many more than they. There was more humility, however, in the second Duke Richard of Normandy, who was far more chivalrous than Edward I., and who ordered his body to be buried at the church-door, where passengers might tread upon it, and the spouts from the roof discharge their water upon it.

It was in the religious spirit of chivalry that Edward I. expelled the Jews. One curious result is said to have followed. Report alleges that many of the Jewish families fled into Scotland, where “they have propagated ever since in great numbers; witness the aversion this nation has above others to hog’s flesh.”