to knights in France is noticed by Daniel (Milice Française, vol. i. pp. 128, 129) and Herder (Ideen zur Geschichte, vol. iv. pp. 226, 267) says, that in France chivalry flourished more than in any other country. The same remark is made by Sismondi (Hist. des Français, vol. iv. p. 198).
337
The Statutum de Militibus, in 1307, was perhaps the first recognition of this. Compare Blackstone's Comment. vol. ii. p. 69; Barrington on the Statutes, pp. 192, 193. But we have positive evidence that compulsory knighthood existed in the reign of Henry III.; or at least that those who refused it were obliged to pay a fine. See Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 421, and Lyttleton's Hist. of Henry II. vol. ii. pp. 238, 239, 2nd edit. 4to. 1767. Lord Lyttleton, evidently puzzled, says, ‘Indeed it seems a deviation from the original principle of this institution. For one cannot but think it a very great inconsistency, that a dignity, which was deemed an accession of honour to kings themselves, should be forced upon any.’
338
In Mills' Hist. of Chivalry, vol. ii. p. 154, it is said, that ‘the judges of the courts of law’ were first knighted in the reign of Edward III.
339
Mr. Mills (Hist. of Chivalry, vol. ii. pp. 99, 100) has printed a curious extract from a lamentation over the destruction of chivalry, written in the reign of Edward IV.; but he has overlooked a still more singular instance. This is a popular ballad, written in the middle of the fifteenth century, and called the Turnament of Tottenham, in which the follies of chivalry are admirably ridiculed. See Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, edit. 1840, vol. iii. pp. 98–101; and Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, edit. 1845, pp. 92–95. According to Turner (Hist. of England, vol. vi. p. 363), ‘the ancient books of chivalry were laid aside’ about the reign of Henry VI.
340
This is not a mere popular opinion, but rests upon a large amount of evidence, supplied by competent and impartial observers. Addison, who was a lenient as well as an able judge, and who had lived much among the French, calls them ‘the vainest nation in the world.’ Letter to Bishop Hough, in Aikin's Life of Addison, vol. i. p. 90. Napoleon says, ‘vanity is the ruling principle of the French.’ Alison's Hist. of Europe, vol. vi. p. 25. Dumont (Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 111) declares, that ‘le trait le plus dominant dans le caractère français, c'est l'amour propre;’ and Ségur (Souvenirs, vol. i. pp. 73, 74), ‘car en France l'amour propre, ou, si on le veut, la vanité, est de toutes les passions la plus irritable.’ It is moreover stated, that phrenological observations prove that the French are vainer than the English. Combe's Elements of Phrenology, 6th edit. Edinb. 1845, p. 90; and a partial recognition of the same fact in Broussais, Cours de Phrénologie, p. 297. For other instances of writers who have noticed the vanity of the French, see Tocqueville, l'Ancien Régime, p. 148; Barante, Lit. Franç. au XVIIIe. Siècle, p. 80; Mém. de Brissot, vol. i. p. 272; Mézéray, Hist. de France, vol. ii. p. 933; Lemontey, Etablissement Monarchique, p. 418; Voltaire, Lettres inédites, vol. ii. p. 282; Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. ii. p. 358; De Staël sur la Révolution, vol. i. p. 260, vol. ii. p. 258.
341
The relation between chivalry and duelling has been noticed by several writers; and in France, where the chivalric spirit was not completely destroyed until the Revolution, we find occasional traces of this connexion even in the reign of Louis XVI. See, for instance, in Mém. de Lafayette, vol. i. p. 86, a curious letter in regard to chivalry and duelling in 1778. In England there is, I believe, no evidence of even a single private duel being fought earlier than the sixteenth century, and there were not many till the latter half of Elizabeth's reign; but in France the custom arose early in the fifteenth century, and in the sixteenth it became usual for the seconds to fight as well as the principals. Compare Montlosier, Monarc. Franç. vol. ii. p. 436, with Monteil, Hist. des divers Etats, vol. vi. p. 48. From that time the love of the French for duelling became quite a passion until the end of the eighteenth century, when the Revolution, or rather the circumstances which led to the Revolution, caused its comparative cessation. Some idea may be formed of the enormous extent of this practice formerly in France, by comparing the following passages, which I have the more pleasure in bringing together, as no one has written even a tolerable history of duelling, notwithstanding the great part it once played in European society. De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. ix. pp. 592, 593, vol. xv. p. 57; Daniel, Milice Française, vol. ii. p. 582; Sully, Œconomies, vol. i. p. 301, vol. iii. p. 406, vol. vi. p. 122, vol. viii. p. 41, vol. ix. p. 408; Carew's State of France under Henry IV., in Birch's Historical Negotiations, p. 467; Ben Jonson's Works, edit. Gifford, vol. vi. p. 69; Dulaure, Hist. de Paris (1825 3rd edit.), vol. iv. p. 567, vol. v. pp. 300, 301; Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Univ. vol. xx. p. 242; Lettres de Patin, vol. iii. p. 536; Capefigue, Hist. de la Réforme, vol. viii. p. 98; Capefigue's Richelieu, vol. i. p. 63; Des Réaux, Historiettes, vol. x. p. 13; Mém. de Genlis, vol. ii. p. 191, vol. vii. p. 215, vol. ix. p. 351; Mem. of the Baroness d'Oberkirch, vol. i. p. 71, edit. Lond. 1852; Lettres inédites d'Aguesseau, vol. i. p. 211; Lettres de Dudeffand à Walpole, vol. iii. p. 249, vol. iv. pp. 27, 28, 152; Boullier, Maison Militaire des Rois de France, pp. 87, 88; Biog. Univ. vol. v. pp. 402, 403, vol. xxiii. p. 411, vol. xliv. pp. 127, 401, vol. xlviii. p. 522, vol. xlix. p. 130.
342
On the effect of the wars of the Roses upon the nobles, compare Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 10; Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. iii. p. 340; Eccleston's English Antiq. pp. 224, 320: and on their immense pecuniary, or rather territorial, losses, Sinclair's Hist. of the Revenue, vol. i. p. 155.
343
‘The last instance of a pitched battle between two powerful noblemen in England occurs in the reign of Edward IV.’ Allen on the Prerogative, p. 123.
344
Clarendon (Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 80), in a very angry spirit, but with perfect truth, notices (under the year 1640) the connexion between ‘a proud and venomous dislike against the discipline of the church of England, and so by degrees (as the progress is very natural) an equal irreverence to the government of the state too.’ The Spanish government, perhaps more than any other in Europe, has understood this relation; and even so late as 1789, an edict of Charles IV. declared, ‘qu'il y a crime d'hérésie dans tout ce qui tend, ou contribue, à propager les idées révolutionnaires.’ Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, vol. ii. p. 130.
345
The general character of her policy towards the Protestant English bishops is summed up very fairly by Collier; though he, as a professional writer, is naturally displeased with her disregard for the heads of the church. Collier's Eccles. Hist. of Great Britain, vol. vii. pp. 257, 258, edit. Barham, 1840.
346
One of the charges which, in 1588, Sixtus V. publicly brought against Elizabeth, was, that ‘she hath rejected and excluded the ancient nobility, and promoted to honour obscure people.’ Butler's Mem. of the Catholics, vol. ii. p. 4. Persons also reproaches her with her low-born ministers, and says that she was influenced ‘by five persons in particular – all of them sprung from the earth – Bacon, Cecil, Dudley, Hatton, and Walsingham.’ Butler, vol. ii. p. 31. Cardinal Allen taunted her with ‘disgracing
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