LECTURE XXII.
The share of the Commons in the Legislature—The Armigeri or Gentry—Knights Bannerets—The nature of Knighthood altered in the reign of James I.—Knights Baronets—Citizens and Burghers—The advancement of the power and reputation of the Commons.
Having given a general idea of the lords, and their share of the legislature, it will now be proper to descend, and see the several classes of the lower rank, called Commons, and to examine what share or influence they had formerly, or now enjoy, in the government. The commoners may, in general, then, be divided into the lesser nobility, or gentry, and the others, whom, for distinction sake, I shall call the lower commons. For although, since the reign of Henry the Eighth, many men of the best families, and some descended from the nobility, have engaged in commerce, and thereby brought lustre to that order of men, before that time all persons engaged in trade were held in as much contempt by the gentry of England, as they are at present, by those of any nation; and a gentleman who employed himself in hunting, or perhaps serving the king, or some great lord, was looked upon to have degraded himself.
The gentry were called Armigeri, because they fought on horseback, in compleat armour, covered from head to foot; whereas the infantry’s defensive arms were of a slighter kind, and no compleat covering. But we are not to imagine that all who fought on horseback compleatly armed, were gentry; for, in order to compleat their squadrons, men of the lower ranks, who, by their strength of body, and military skill, were capable of service, were admitted, but this did not make them gentlemen. Hence, in our old histories, we find the knights and esquires, that is, the real gentry, carefully distinguished from the men at arms. The peculiar privilege of the gentry was the bearing on their shields certain marks, to distinguish them from each other, and the men at arms called Coats of Arms. At first they were personal privileges, and not inherent in the blood, and the marks and rewards of some personal act of bravery performed by the bearer; so we find in the romances, that a new knight was to wear plain white, until, by some exploit, he merited a mark. The general opinion is, that they were first introduced at the time of the crusades, which I believe is pretty just, at least with respect to our country: for the imperial crown of England had no arms before the conquest. The Norman kings bore the arms of Normandy, two leopards passant, to which Richard the First added that of Guienne, another leopard passant, and so composed this English coat, in which, among other alterations, the leopards have since been changed to lions[271].
For the further encouragement of valour, these marks became transmissible to heirs, not to the eldest son only, as lands, but to all the sons; saving that the younger were to take some addition, for distinction sake. While these coats were granted by the king alone, and that for real service done, and consequently were not too common; and while the custom of wearing compleat armour remained, and the office of high constable (the judge in such matters) continued, the gentry were very curious in preserving these distinctions, and vindicating them from usurpation. But as the military disposition of our gentry hath greatly subsided since the loss of the provinces in France, and the kings at arms have assumed the power of giving coats, nicety in these respects hath long since expired; and now, as in a commercial country, especially, it should be, education and behaviour are sufficient criterions of a gentleman.
I shall therefore say no more of them, as distinguished from the rest of the commonalty, but observe, that of these there are two ranks, knights and esquires, or gentlemen. For though we now make a distinction between these two last, the old law knew none, nor is it now a misnomer, in a writ of pleadings, to stile an esquire a gentleman, or the contrary. The holding of a knight’s fee did not make a man of that order, but there were particular ceremonies required for the purpose. For the original design of the institution of dubbing knights, was that, after a person had, by performing military exercises, shewn that he had properly accomplished himself, and was capable of that honourable service in the field, in his proper person, he should, by a public solemnity, be openly declared so. No wonder, then, that the highest nobility, the sons of kings, nay kings themselves, thought this title an addition to their dignity, as it was then an infallible proof, that they had not degenerated from the virtue of their ancestors[272].
But among knights there were some of a more distinguished kind (I do not mean to speak of particular orders, such as those of the garter and others) called Bannerets, as knights in general were made, upon their proving themselves by exercises capable of service. These were never made but for an actual exploit in war, and then were dubbed with great solemnity under the royal banner. Their distinction was bearing a little banner, annexed to the wooden part of their lance, adjoining the iron point; as, originally, every man who had a whole knight’s fee, or the amount thereof in parts of fees, was obliged to serve in person, and was not allowed a proxy, but in cases of necessity every such person was obliged to appear upon the king’s summons, to shew himself qualified, and to receive the order of knighthood. This power continued in the king, even after the military tenants were discharged of personal attendance on sending another, or paying escuage, and came to be considered as a profitable fruit of the king’s seignory, and was frequently used as an expedient to raise money, by obliging the unqualified, or those who had no mind to the expence or fatigue of attending, to compound[273].
This right of composition was established by act of parliament, the first of Edward the Second, which likewise fixes the estate the persons summoned must have at twenty pounds a year, the quantity of a knight’s fee; twenty pounds a year was indeed the valuation of a knight’s fee at the time of the conquest, but by change of times, in Edward the Second’s reign, it may well be esteemed forty; so that by this act a man who had half a knight’s fee was liable to be summoned. This was one of the unhappy means made use of by king Charles the First to procure money when he quarrelled with his parliament. He was sensible, indeed, of a difference in the value of money, and therefore summoned none but such as had forty pounds a-year; but had he paid due attention to its real rise, he should have summoned none under an hundred and twenty. For in Edward’s reign a pound in money was a real pound in silver, whereas in Charles’s, it was but a third part, and so the proportion was to sixty pound sterling, and sixty more is the least rise that can be allowed for the improvements in the value of lands, by the intermediate increase of commerce. No wonder, therefore, that his people looked upon it as an unsupportable grievance. Accordingly, in the 17th of his reign, the act of Edward the second was repealed, and in Ireland, it vanished with the tenures on which it depended[274].
The great change in the nature of knighthood happened in the reign of James the First. The Plantagenets never created any persons such but with a view to military merit, except their judges. The Tudors extended it to persons who had served them well in civil stations, but so sparingly, and to persons of such evident merit, that it still was an encouragement to those that deserved well of the public. But James, who had a passion for creating honours, poured forth his knighthoods, without regard to desert, with so lavish an hand, confirming them for money frequently on wealthy traders, and others without any apparent public merit, that thereby, as also by creating an order of hereditary knights, called baronets, a knighthood soon lost the badge of merit it before had carried.