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become more and more confined to sovereign princes, or nobles who nearly equalled them in rank and independence. By degrees these restrictions were drawn gradually closer, until at length it was held that none but a sovereign or a commander-in-chief, displaying the royal banner, and vested with plenary and vice-regal authority, could confer the degree of knighthood. Queen Elizabeth was particularly jealous of this part of her prerogative, and nothing more excited her displeasure and indignation against her favourite Essex, than the profuseness with which he distributed the honour at Cadiz, and afterwards in Ireland. These anecdotes, however, belong to the decay of Chivalry.

The knight had several privileges of dignity and importance. He was associated into a rank wherein kings and princes were, in one sense, only his equals. He took precedence in war and in counsel, and was addressed by the respectful title of Messire in French, and Sir in English, and his wife by that of Madame and Dame. A knight was also, in point of military rank, qualified to command any body of men under a thousand. His own service was performed on horseback and in complete armour, of many various fashions, according to the taste of the warriors and the custom of the age. Chaucer has enumerated some of these varieties :—

"With him ther wenten knights many on.
Som wol ben armed in an habergeon,
And in a brest plate, and in a gipon;
And som wol have a pair of plates large;
And som wol have a pruse sheld, or a targe;
Som wol ben armed on his legges wele,
And have an axe, and some a mace of stele.

Ther n'is no newe guise, that it n'as old.
Armed they weren, as I have you told,
Everich after his opinion."

The weapons of offence, however, most appropriate to knighthood, were the lance and sword. They had frequently a battle-axe or mace at their saddle-bow, a formidable weapon even to men sheathed in iron like themselves. The knight had also a dagger which he used when at close quarters. It was called the dagger of mercy, probably because, when unsheathed, it behoved the antagonist to crave mercy or to die. The management of the lance and of the horse was the principal requisite of knighthood. To strike the foeman either on the helmet or full upon the breast with the point of the lance, and at full speed, was accounted perfect practice; to miss him, or to break a lance across, i. e. athwart the body of the antagonist, without striking him with the point, was accounted an awkward failure; to strike his horse, or to hurt his person under the girdle, was conceived a foul or felon action, and could only be excused by the hurry of a general encounter. When the knights, from the nature of the ground, or other circumstances, alighted to fight on foot, they used to cut some part from the length of their spears, in order to render them more manageable, like the pikes used by infantry. But their most formidable onset was when mounted and " in host." They seem then to have formed squadrons not unlike the present disposition of cavalry in the field, their squires forming the rear-rank, or performing the part of serrefiles. As the horses were trained in the tourneys and exercises to run

upon each other without flinching, the shock of two such bodies of heavy-armed cavalry was dreadful, and the event usually decided the battle; for, until the Swiss showed the superior steadiness which could be exhibited by infantry, all great actions were decided by the men-at-arms. The yeomanry of England, indeed, formed a singular exception; and, from the dexterous use of the long-bow, to which they were trained from infancy, were capable of withstanding and destroying the mail-clad chivalry both of France and Scotland. Their shafts, according to the exaggerating eloquence of a monkish historian, Thomas of Walsingham, penetrated steel coats from side to side, transfixed helmets, and even splintered lances, and pierced through swords! But, against every other pedestrian adversary, the knights, squires, and men-at-arms, had the most decided advantage, from their impenetrable armour, the strength of their horses, and the fury of

[K. Edward. See, Chandos, Percy — Ha, Saint George! Saint Edward!

See it descending now, the fatal hail-shower,

The storm of England's wrath-sure, swift, resistless,
Which no mail-coat can brook.—Brave English hearts!

How close they shoot together!-as one eye

Had aim'd five thousand shafts-as if one hand
Had loosed five thousand bow-strings!

Percy. The thick volley

Darkens the air, and hides the sun from us.

K. Edward. It falls on those shall see the sun no more,

The winged, the resistless plague is with them.

How their vex'd host is reeling to and fro !

Like the chafed whale with fifty lances in him,

They do not see, and cannot shun the wound.
The storm is viewless, as death's sable wing,
Unerring as his scythe.

their onset. To render success yet more certain, and attack less hazardous, the horse, on the safety of which the riders so much depended, was armed en-barbe, as it was called, like himself. A masque made of iron covered the animal's face and ears; it had a breast-plate, and armour for the croupe. The strongest horses were selected for this service; they were generally stallions, and to ride a mare was reckoned base and unknightly.

To distinguish him in battle, as his face was hid by the helmet, the knight wore above his armour a surcoat, as it was called, like a herald's coat, on which his arms were emblazoned. Others had them painted on the shield, a small triangular buckler of light wood, covered with leather, and sometimes plated with steel, which, as best suited him, the knight could either wield on his left arm, or suffer to hang down from his neck, as an additional defence to his breast, when the left hand was required for the management of the horse. The shape of these shields is preserved, being that on which heraldric coats are most frequently blazoned. But it is something remarkable, that not one of those Percy. Horses and riders are going down together. 'Tis almost pity to see nobles fall,

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That knights can claim small honours in the field

Which archers win, unaided by our lances.

SIR WALTER SCOTT's Poetical Works, (Halidon Hill.) Vol. xii., p. 65.]

1 [See this subject treated in detail in the Tales of a Grandfather, on the History of France, vol. ii., p. 319.]

heater1 shields has been preserved in the Tower, or, so far as we know, in any English collection. The helmet was surmounted by a crest, which the knight adopted after his own fancy. There was deadly offence taken if one knight, without right, assumed the armorial bearings of another; and history is full of disputes on that head, some of which terminated fatally. The heralds were the persons appealed to on these occasions, when the dispute was carried on in peace, and hence flowed the science, as it was called, of Heraldry, with all its fantastic niceties. By degrees the crest and device became also hereditary, as well as the bearings on the shield. In addition to his armorial bearings, the knight distinguished himself in battle by shouting out his war-cry, which was echoed by his followers. It was usually the name of some favourite saint, united with that of his own family. If the knight had followers under his command, they reechoed his war-cry, and rallied round his pennon or flag at the sound. The pennon differed from the penoncel, or triangular streamer which the squire was entitled to display, being double the breadth, and indented at the end like the tail of a swallow. It presented the appearance of two penoncels united at the end next the staff, a consideration which was not perhaps out of view in determining its shape. Of course, the reader will understand that those knights only displayed a pennon who had retainers to support and defend it; the mounting

1 So called because resembling in shape the heater of a smoothing-iron.

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