Cavalier (British)

“ To crush this growing enthusiasm (which was so great [Pg 367] at times, that an angel was more than once averred to have been seen in mid air, overhanging a conventicle) , to suppress these armed religious meetings, and enforce Episcopacy on the people, was now the ungrateful task assigned to Dalyell, to Drummond, and the Scottish standing forces, who were all commanded by officers of high Cavalier principles, and were usually men without much scruple in obeying the orders of the king and council. ”

“ The King and kingdom’s debts defray’d,
And those of honest men well pay’d,
To which their vertue them betray’d,
God send, etc.
Increase of customes to the King
May our increase of traffick bring,
’Tis that will make the people sing
Long live, etc.
London, printed for Robert Crofts, at the Crown, in Chancery Lane, 1661.
THE CAVALIER’S COMPLAINT.
This and the following ballad, from the King’s Pamphlets, British Museum, express the discontent of the Cavaliers at the ingratitude of King Charles to the old supporters of the fortunes of his family.— (March 15th, 1660.) ”

“ His friends rejected this treaty, however, and Cavalier soon afterwards went to Holland, where he was given command of a regiment in the English service. His career in arms was a brilliant one, so brilliant that the British made him a general and governor of the island of Jersey; but he nowhere showed greater genius or manifested higher soldierly qualities than during the time when he was the Boy Commander of the Camisards. ”

“ Let me remind you that the Virginia Cavalier first challenged France on this continent— that Cavalier, John Smith, gave New England its very name, and was so pleased with the job that he has been handing his own name around ever since—and that while Miles Standish was cutting off men's ears for courting a girl without her parents' consent, and forbade men to kiss their wives on Sunday, the Cavalier was courting everything in sight, and that the Almighty had vouchsafed great increase to the Cavalier colonies, the huts in the wilderness being full as the nests in the woods. ”

“ But if not extremely poetical, they are extremely national, and racy of the soil; and some of them are certain to live as long as the language which produced them. For the convenience of reference and consultation they have been arranged chronologically; beginning with the discontents that inaugurated the reign of Charles I., and following regularly to the final, though short-lived, triumph of the Cavalier cause, in the accession of James II. After his ill-omened advent to the throne, the Cavalier became the Jacobite. ”

“ These closing words may well form the epitaph written over the Colonial Cavalier. He is gone from hence unto a higher court—gone from this world forever. His open-handed hospitality, his reckless profusion, his chivalry to women, his quick-tempered, sword-thrusting honor, are as obsolete as his lace ruffles, his doublet and jerkin, his buckles and jewels and feathers. We are fallen on a prosaic age, and it is only in our dreams of the past that we conjure up, like a gay decoration against the neutral background of modern life, the figure of “The Colonial Cavalier.” ”

“ They dressed very plainly, and they thought the followers of the king, with their long hair and lace and ruffles, very frivolous people indeed. It was the men of the Parliament side who first gave the name Cavalier to the Royalists. It was meant by them to show contempt, and came from the Italian word cavaliere, which means literally "a horseman," coming from the Late Latin word caballus, "a horse." ”

“ Much fewer of the Cavaliers had any such aim, beyond their devotion to the monarchy, and their enthusiastic determination to uphold it. They were mostly gay, rollicking fellows, with little principle, and less steadfastness, who squandered their money on folly, if nothing worse; and then helped themselves to other people’s goods without any uneasiness of conscience.
Colonel Lane was a Cavalier, and devoted to the King, and most of his tenants were Cavaliers also. A few were Roundheads—staunch adherents of the Parliament ”

“ A troop of the Royal Life Guards, with their bright arms flashing in the light of the waving torches, were hewing and treading down the mob like a field of rye; and chief above all shone one cavalier—it was Dundee—the gallant, the terrible Claver'se, that man-fiend, whom all deemed six hundred miles away. ”

“ The horseman adjusted his cloak, wiped his sword with the square cape, and had just replaced it in the scabbard, when the Cavalier returned from his fruitless chase. As he advanced towards the person to whom he had rendered such signal service, he noted that he was a hale, stout man, probably past the meridian of life, of a stern and awe-striking presence; and an involuntary feeling of respect made him lift his hat from his head, and even remain uncovered while expressing hopes "that he had received no injury from the cowards who had thus beset his path." ”

“ In the afternoon the Camisards were plentifully supplied with food by a wealthy miller on the Garden, whom they believed to be true to their cause. By nightfall, Cavalier had reconnoitred all the country; and as the sun set, dark clouds gathered fast, and premature twilight shrouded the valleys. Through them the wind howled, foreboding a storm, and Cavalier laughed with stern joy, when telling his followers that their attack would be veiled by the war of the elements. ”

“ He was among the English lords who signed the treaty of Bretigny in the year 1360; and I regret that he was one of Edward’s council who advised the sending of [Pg 40] succours to the Black Prince, when he was about to assist Peter the Cruel. It is more pleasing to contemplate our cavalier on the battle-plain than in the hall of deliberation. He was, to the height, a sage and imaginative soldier; skilful as well as brave in battle. ”

“ Such a race produced a strong and hardy type of manhood, admirable if not always lovable.
But there was another force at work, moulding the national character, a force as persistent, a type as intense as the Puritan’s own, and its exact opposite. The men who settled the Southern Colonies, Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas, were Cavaliers; not necessarily in blood, or even in loyalty to the Stuart cause, but Cavalier in sympathies, in the general view of life, in virtues and vices. ”

“ The American Puritan confessed to a certain tenderness for the generous lost cause, for the fine futile courage of the gay Cavaliers and lovely forgotten ladies. And as they rode homeward through the twilight, his companion sang snatches of some old Cavalier songs—tunes with a certain pathos and grace in their gallant wistful music. ”

“ When the plains of France were one vast tilting ground for the French and English knights, stern fanaticism did not draw the sword. In the crusades, romantic aspirations after woman’s smiles seldom inspired the hero’s chivalry, but in the wars of Edward III. in France, every cavalier fought for the honour of his lady-mistress as well as for the ambition of his King. ”

“ While at the height of their exultation a troop came filing along the causeway, the sight of which brought a sudden change over the countenances of the jesters. It was composed of men in cavalry uniform, but afoot and without arms; only some half-dozen—the officers—on horseback. Its standard, too, taken from it, and, perhaps, well it had been. Flouted before the eyes of that Cavalier crew, alike regardless of oath and honour, the banner, showing Crown impaled by Sword, would have been torn to shreds; they bearing it set upon and cut to pieces. ”

“ If gambling was a favorite pastime and the lottery a popular excitement, the Cavalier was not a stranger to manlier sports. Of a brave and ardent temper, and a fine physique, he found at once his work and play in the hardy amusements of the chase. He had learned from the Indian to stalk the deer, walking stealthily behind his horse till a good chance offered to shoot close at hand, and lay the unsuspecting deer at his feet. ”

“ That man, Sir Cavalier, is no thief. If he is any thing at all, he is a Nuveiro,—a fellow who rides upon the clouds, and is occasionally whisked away by a gust of wind. Should you ever travel with that man again, never allow him more than one glass of anise at a time, or he will infallibly mount into the clouds and leave you, and then he will ride and run till he comes to a water brook, or knocks his head against a fountain—then one draught, and he is himself again. So you are going to Finisterra, Sir Cavalier. ”

“ Clean down the wind like Cavaliers.
Fill this unnatural quart with sack,
Nature all vacuums doth decline;
Ourselves will be a zodiac,
And every mouth shall be a sign.
Methinks the travels of the glass
Are circular, like Plato’s year;
Where everything is as it was
Let’s tipple round: and so ’tis here.
THE NEW COURTIER. By Alex. Brome. 1648.
Since it must be so
Then so let it go,
Let the giddy-brain’d times turn round;
Since we have no king let the goblet be crown’d,
Our monarchy thus will recover:
While the pottles are weeping
We’ll drench our sad souls
In big-bellied bowls ”

“ It is a common boast of these slave-lords that they constitute a modern “chivalry,” derived from the “Cavaliers” of England, and reinforced by the “ennobling” influences of African Slavery. [380] This boast has been so often repeated, that it has obtained a certain acceptance among those not familiar with our early history, and even well-informed persons allow themselves to say that the conflict in which we are now engaged is a continuance of the old war between Cavalier and Roundhead. ”

“ From the Cavaliers we have a more intimate bequest: it is from them, not from the Puritans, that the fighting forces of the British Empire inherit their outlook on the world, their freedom from pedantry, and that gaiety and lightness of courage which makes them carry their lives like a feather in the cap.
I am not saying that our qualities, good or bad, commend us very readily to strangers. The people of England, on the whole, are respected more than they are liked. ”

“ A cavalier was kind and courteous to his prisoner, because he saw in him a brother; and while the system of ancient manners would have limited this feeling to people of one nation, a knight did not bound his humanity by country or soil, for Christian chivalry was spread over most parts of Europe, and formed mankind into one band, one order of men. ”

“ Italy, especially, attracted the attention of gentlemen and scholars in those days, but the Cavalier was more bent on soldiering than sightseeing and he hurries on to tell of his adventures in Germany, where he first really took part in warfare, becoming a volunteer officer in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, the hero King of Sweden, and where he met with those adventures the story of which forms the bulk of the first part of the Memoirs. ”

“ AGAIN, as far as I was concerned, time pursued its even course, and in my retreat I had little cause to complain of the manner of life I was leading, were it not for the galling fate of circumstances that had befallen my King and country. There were hundreds of brave Cavaliers, ruined by their devotion, who lurked in obscurity and sequestration, awaiting the time when their swords were once more to fly from their scabbards in the defence, and for the honour, of His Majesty, so that I comforted myself that in my present position I was by no means an exception. ”

“ The opening of the Lascours wine-cellars proved the ruin of the Royalists, for many of the men were so drunk that they were unable either to fight or fly. After returning thanks to God on the battle-field, Cavalier conducted the rejoicing people of Lascours back to their village, and proceeded to his head-quarters at Bouquet with his booty and his trophies. ”

“ At the same time he authorized the formation of a Camisard regiment for service in Spain under his command.
Before leaving the Cévennes for the last time he went to Alais and to Ribaute, followed by an immense concourse of people. But Cavalier had not been able to obtain liberty of conscience, and his Camisards almost to a man broke forth in wrath against him, reproaching him for what they described as his treacherous desertion. ”

“ Knighthood was an institution perfectly peculiar to the military and social state of our ancestors. There was no analogy between the knights of chivalry and the equites of Rome, for pecuniary estate was absolutely necessary for the latter; whereas, though the European cavalier was generally a man of some possessions, yet he was often a person promoted into the order of chivalry, solely as a reward for his redoubted behaviour in battle. ”

“ They do not understand a cavalier, so they confidently assert that there is no such thing in nature. That is a bad mistake to make about any nation, but perhaps worst when it is made about the English, for the cavalier temper in England runs through all classes. You can find it in the schoolmaster, the small trader, the clerk, and the labourer, as readily as in the officer of dragoons, or the Arctic explorer. The Roundheads won the Civil War, and bequeathed to us their political achievements. ”

“ Sing Tantara rara, boys,
Tantara rara, boys,
This is the life of an Old Cavalier.
A CAVEAT TO THE ROUNDHEADS. From the Posthumous Works of Samuel Butler.
I come to charge ye
That fight the clergy,
And pull the mitre from the prelate’s head,
That you will be wary
Lest you miscarry
In all those factious humours you have bred;
But as for Brownists we’ll have none,
But take them all and hang them one by one.
Your wicked actions
Join’d in factions
Are all but aims to rob the King of his due;
p. 32Then give this reason
For your treason,
That you’ll be ruled, if he’ll be ruled by you. ”