“Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick.”
These carpet-knights were sometimes called “knights of the green cloth.”[964]
Chair Days. Days of old age and infirmity. So, in “2 Henry VI.” (v. 2), young Clifford, on seeing his dead father, says:
“Wast thou ordain’d, dear father,
To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve
The silver livery of advised age,
And, in thy reverence, and thy chair-days, thus
To die in ruffian battle?”
Chivalry. The expression “sworn brothers,” which Shakespeare several times employs, refers to the “fratres jurati,” who, in the days of chivalry, mutually bound themselves by oath to share each other’s fortune. Thus, Falstaff says of Shallow, in “2 Henry IV.” (iii. 2): “He talks as familiarly of John o’ Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him.” In “Henry V.” (ii. 1), Bardolph says: “we’ll be all three sworn brothers to France.” In course of time it was used in a laxer sense, to denote intimacy, as in “Much Ado About Nothing” (i. 1), where Beatrice says of Benedick, that “He hath every month a new sworn brother.”[965]
According to the laws of chivalry, a person of superior birth might not be challenged by an inferior; or, if challenged, might refuse combat, a reference to which seems to be made by Cleopatra (“Antony and Cleopatra,” ii. 4):
“I will not hurt him.—
These hands do lack nobility, that they strike
A meaner than myself.”
Again, in “Troilus and Cressida” (v. 4), the same practice is alluded to by Hector, who asks Thersites:
“What art thou, Greek? art thou for Hector’s match?
Art thou of blood and honour?”
Singer quotes from “Melville’s Memoirs” (1735, p. 165): “The Laird of Grange offered to fight Bothwell, who answered that he was not his equal. The like answer made he to Tullibardine. Then my Lord Lindsay offered to fight him, which he could not well refuse; but his heart failed him, and he grew cold on the business.”