“The King having resolved that no person shall enjoy more than one office in his service, notice has been given to the Duke d’Arco, who is Master of the Horse, and Gentleman of the Bedchamber; the Marquis de Montelegre, Lord Chamberlain and Captain of the Guard of Halberdiers; the Marquis de St. Juan, Steward of the Household, and Master of the Horse to the Queen; and one of the Council of the Harinda, the Marquis de Bedmar, the Minister of War, and President of the Council; and several others who are in the like case, to choose which of their employments they will keep. To which they have all replied that they will make no claim, but will be determined by what his Majesty shall think fit to appoint. The like orders are given in the army, where they who receive pay as General Officers, and have Colonels’ commissions besides, are obliged to part with their regiments.”
This regulation seriously disturbed the revenue of many a Spanish knight; but it was a wise and salutary regulation, nevertheless. At the very period of its being established, Venice was selling her titles of knighthood and nobility. In the same Gazette from which the above details are extracted, I find it noticed, under the head of “Venice, March 25,” that “Signor David, and Paul Spinelli, two Geneva gentlemen, were, upon their petition, admitted this week by the Grand Council, into the Order of the Nobility of this Republic, having purchased that honor for a hundred thousand ducats.” It was a large price for so small a privilege.
I have treated of knighthood under George II., sufficiently at length, when speaking of that king himself; and I will add only one trait of his successor.
It was not often that George III. was facetious, but tradition has attributed to him a compound pun, when he was urged by his minister to confer knighthood upon Judge Day, on the return of the latter from India. “Pooh! pooh!” remonstrated the king, “how can I turn a Day into night?” On the ministerial application being renewed, the king asked, if Mr. Day was married, and an affirmative reply being given, George III. immediately rejoined, “Then let him come to the next drawing-room, and I will perform a couple of miracles; I will not only turn Day into Knight, but I will make Lady-Day at Christmas.”
There was a saying of George III. which, put into practice, was as beneficial as many of the victories gained by more chivalrous monarchs. “The ground, like man, was never intended to be idle. If it does not produce something useful it will be overrun with weeds.”
Among the men whom James I. knighted, was one who had passed through the career of a page, and notice of whom I have reserved, that I might contrast his career with that of a contemporary and well-known squire.
RICHARD CARR, PAGE; AND GUY FAUX,
ESQUIRE.
Of all the adventurers of the seventeenth century, I do not know any who so well illustrate the objects I have in view, as the two above-named gentlemen. The first commenced life as a page; the second was an esquire by condition, and a man-at-arms. Master Faux, for attempting murder, suffered death; and Richard Carr, although he was convicted of murder, was suffered to live on, and was not even degraded from knighthood.
When the Sixth James of Scotland reigned, a poor king in a poor country, there was among his retinue a graceful boy—a scion of the ancient house of Fernyhurst, poor in purse, and proud in name. At the court of the extravagant yet needy Scottish king, there was but scant living even for a saucy page; and Richard Carr of Fernyhurst turned his back on Mid Lothian, and in foreign travel forgot his northern home.
James, in his turn, directed his face toward the English border; and subsequently, in the vanities of Whitehall, the hunting at Theobald’s, the vicious pleasure of Greenwich, and the roysterings at Royston, he forgot the graceful lad who had ministered to him at Holyrood, St. Andrews, and Dunbar.