Rapin says that the countess commanded all persons to keep within doors and away from windows during her ride. One man, named Tom of Coventry, took a peep of the lady on horseback, but it cost him his life.
*** Tennyson, in his Godiva, has reproduced this story.
Peerage of the Saints. In the preamble of the statutes instituting the Order of St. Michael, founded by Louis XI in 1469, the archangel is styled “my lord,” and created a knight. The apostles had been already ennobled and knighted. We read of “the Earl Peter,” “Count Paul,” “the Baron Stephen,” and so on. Thus, in the introduction of a sermon upon St. Stephen’s Day, we have these lines:
Entendes toutes a chest sermon,
Et clair et lai tules environ;
Contes vous vueille la pation
De St. Estieul le baron.
Peerce (1 syl.), a generic name for a farmer or ploughman. Piers the plowman is the name assumed by Robert or William Langland, in a historico-satirical poem so called.
And yet, my priests, pray you to God for Peerce ...
And if you have a “pater noster” spare,
Then you shal pray for saylers.
G. Gascoigne, The Steele Glas (died 1577).
Peery (Paul), landlord of the Ship, Dover.
Mrs. Peery, Paul’s wife.—G. Colman, Ways and Means (1788).
Peerybingle (John), a carrier, “lumbering, slow, and honest; heavy, but light of spirit; rough upon the surface, but gentle at the core; dull without, but quick within; stolid, but so good. O, Mother Nature, give thy children the true poetry of heart that hid itself in this poor carrier’s breast, and we can bear to have them talking prose all their life long!”
Mrs. [Mary] Peerybingle, called by her husband “Dot.” She was a little chubby, cheery, young wife, very fond of her husband, and very proud of her baby; a good housewife, who delighted in making the house snug and cozy for John, when he came home after his day’s work. She called him “a dear old darling of a dunce,” or “her little goosie.” She sheltered Edward Plummer in her cottage for a time, and got into trouble; but the marriage of Edward with May Fielding cleared up the mystery, and John loved his little Dot more fondly than ever.—C. Dickens, The Cricket on the Hearth (1845).