Charles Knight

“ No one, not even the handsomest young knight, could compare in her eyes with the mature, powerful guide of the destiny of many millions, whose lofty brow was illumined by the grandeur of his intellect, and with whose name the memory of glorious victories was associated. The pride justified by his birth had led him from one lofty deed to another, and he could not help carrying his head so high, for how far all the rest of mankind lay beneath him! There was no living mortal to whom the Emperor Charles would have been obliged to look up, or before whom he need bow his head at all. ”

“ CHAPTER I. PARENTAGE OF MISS KNIGHT—ANECDOTES OF HER FATHER—HER EARLY DAYS—EDUCATION—SOCIETY—SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS—BURKE—GOLDSMITH—BARETTI—ANECDOTE OF DR. JOHNSON—DEATH OF ADMIRAL KNIGHT.
My ancestors, on my father’s side, lost a very considerable landed property from their attachment to the cause of royalty, during the unfortunate reign of Charles the First. My grandfather had a trifling employment in Cornwall, where my father, his youngest son, was born. The latter entered the naval service of the Crown at the age of fourteen, on board a ship of war, commanded by his brother. ”

“ I am more inclined to allow a high-mindedness of feeling to Charles than to his father. The king, who supposed the entire art of reigning lay in dissimulation, may not be charged with an over-scrupulous nicety in his observations of the rules of fair dealing; but the young prince, at this period, had the sentiments without the vanity of a knight-errant, his only error was in the constitutional weakness which bent to the arrogance of Buckingham’s somewhat stronger mind. ”

“ Never did king have better champion than Charles had on that day, in the able knight Sir Marmaduke Langdale. The knight in question had gained a marked advantage over his adversary, the equally able Poyntz. To cheer the king, then beleaguered in Chester Castle, with the news, Sir Marmaduke despatched Colonel Shakerley. He could not have commissioned a better man. ”

“ Right grave and honorable, that importeth much—
‘Evil be to him,’ it saith, ‘that evil thinks.’”
Elizabeth was distinguished for loving to hold newly-chosen knights in suspense, before she ratified their election by her approval. The anniversary banquets too fell into disuse during her reign, and she introduced the most unworthy knight that had ever stood upon the record of the order. This was Charles IX. of France. On the other hand she sent the Garter to Henri Quatre. ”

“ Here the Confessor died. Here was the trial of Charles I. when it was adjourned from Westminster Hall. Here his death warrant was signed, which [Pg 273] is now preserved within the library of the House of Lords.
Says Knight: “Amid all the misgovernment of the reign of Charles II., the rights of the House of Commons and its true position in the Constitution were recognised in a manner in which they had never been in the former days of the monarchy. Attempts were made to manage the Parliament, and also to govern without it ”

“ Reciting an epilogue in a hat 'of the circumference of a large coachwheel' (Waldron, supplement to Downes's Roscius Anglicanus) , her little figure looked so droll as to lead King Charles to take her home in his coach to supper, and so to make her his mistress. Innumerable stories of the kind, many of them diverting and all unedifying, are transmitted by tradition, and contain no inherent improbability. After the exaltation of Mrs. Gwyn to royal favour stories and satires multiplied. ”

“ King Charles had desired the Bishop of Nicaragua to establish monasteries in his diocese. The arrival of Las Casas and his two companions presenting the opportunity of carrying out the King's wish, the bishop begged them to stay with him, and they consented, and began at once to learn the language of the country. ”

“ Clement Scott and Cecil Howard, which is a memorial of arduous and incessant struggle and, until near the end, of miserable pay. It furnishes a delightful picture of one of the kindest, most genial, and lovable of Bohemians — a man with some of the charm of a Charles Lamb. ”

“ An excellent vocalist, with a deep bass voice and a serviceable falsetto, a fair actor, a clever mimic, smart in rejoinder, good-natured, easy-going, and thoroughly careless in money matters, he obtained remarkable social success, was popularly known as honest Charles Bannister, and was the hero of many anecdotes of questionable authority. ”

“ But if the king, the nobles, and the people of the middle ages conspired together, or acted at least as if they conspired, to prevent the accumulation of capital, the few capitalists themselves, by their monstrous regulations, which still throw some dark shadows over our own days, prevented that freedom of industry without which capital could not accumulate. ”

“ In London, 1684, appeared ‘The Artless Midnight Thoughts of a Gentleman at Court; who for many Years built on Sand, which every Blast of cross Fortune has defaced; but now he has laid new Foundations on the Rock of his Salvation, which no Storms can shake; and will last out the conflagration of the world, when time shall melt into eternity,’ 8vo, 1684; 2nd edition, 12mo, 1684. The first dedication to Charles II bears no name, but the second to James II is signed W. Killigrew. ”

“ I would it pleased our sovereign Lord, that twice or thrice a year, or at the least once, he would cry jousts of peace, to the end that every knight should have horse and harness, and also the use and craft of a knight, and also to tourney one against one, or two against two; and the best to have a prize, a diamond or jewel, such as should please the prince. This should cause gentlemen to resort to the ancient customs of chivalry to great fame and renown: and also to be alway ready to serve their prince when he shall call them, or have need. ”

“ No one can doubt that, the instant the labour of man ceases to direct those productive natural forces, the destroying forces immediately come into action. Take the most familiar instance—a cottage whose neat thatch was never broken, whose latticed windows were always entire, whose whitewashed walls were ever clean, round whose porch the honeysuckle was trained in regulated luxuriance, whose garden bore nothing but what the owner planted. ”

“ The influence of France prevailed. The priests stirred up the Scottish people to resist the English heretics. Knox was a prisoner in France; and the friends of the Reformation were scattered and proscribed.
Somerset advanced from Berwick along the shore, whilst a fleet under lord Clinton kept the sea within view of the coast; and as the army marched by Dunbar, the ships were seen sailing into the Firth of Forth. Turning westward the cavalry forded the river Lynn, and the infantry crossed at Linton Bridge. Bands of Scottish horsemen now began to appear ”

“ Other parts in which he was seen were Sir Harcourt Courtly in 'London Assurance,' Monsieur Jacques in the musical piece so named, Duke Anatole in the 'Island of Bachelors,' Charles in Byron's 'Oil and Vinegar,' Sir Peter Teazle, Tony Lumpkin, and Tourbillon in 'To Parents and Guardians.' At the Globe on 15 April 1876 he was the first Dr. ”

“ Despotism, in all ages, has depopulated the finest countries, by rendering capital insecure, and therefore unproductive; insomuch that Montesquieu lays it down as a maxim, that lands are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but in proportion to their freedom. ”

“ The wearied labourer, and the giddy schoolboy, pass reverently by these rose-trees, and touch not a flower; for some they recognise as tokens of love, and every tree that sheds its rich June blossoms over the grassy mounds soothingly whispers “all must die.” ”

“ The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, Conceives by idleness; and nothing teems But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs, Losing both beauty and utility: And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges, Defective in their natures, grow to wildness; Even so our houses, and ourselves and children, Have lost, or do not learn, for want of time, The sciences that should become our country. ”

“ It would be injustice to the policy of Somerset to assume that he entered upon the war with Scotland in the arrogant spirit with which Henry VIII. had conducted his negotiations and his assaults. There was a treaty under the Great Seal of Scotland for the marriage of Edward with Mary; but the determination to demand its fulfilment was conducted in a tone of moderation, in the first instance, which shows that the empire of force was gradually yielding to the empire of opinion. ”

“ Macaulay has contributed nothing to positive knowledge. Mr. Dickens has gone into a large garden, and made a bouquet of the flowers, although he paid no wages to the man who raised them. He who makes a book uses the common property of mankind, and all he furnishes is the workmanship. Mankind has, therefore, a right to say to the authors, whenever they seek an extension of their privileges, "Be content, my friends; do not risk the loss of a part of what you have, in the effort to obtain more." ”

“ If the nobles, the higher gentry, and even the lawyers and ecclesiastics, were indifferently provided with books, we cannot expect that the yeomen had any books whatever. The merchants and citizens were probably somewhat better provided. The labourers, who were scarcely yet fully established in their freedom from bondage to one lord, were probably, as a class, wholly unable to use books at all. ”

“ This the new king of France refused to ratify. He preferred to cultivate an alliance with the Scots. The duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine were the brothers of the queen-dowager of Scotland, and they were amongst the chief advisers of the French king. To stay the progress of the reformed opinions in Scotland, and to prevent the marriage of the young Mary with Edward, were sufficient motives to a decided change of policy. The castle of St. Andrews, after the murder of cardinal Beaton, in 1546, had been held against the regent Arran, by those who were favourable to the English alliance. ”

“ For a time he made sport for the people, who hunted him like other game, but having shown a propensity to deal with men as he did with dogs, they laid a trap for him, chained him, and took him before the king. Charles, more humane than the noble burgesses, refused to have him killed, but ordered him to be shorn and confined in a monastery. ”

“ His mother was Sophie Roy Portelance, a French-Canadian lady, who died about 1854. His grandfather came to Canada as bandmaster with one of the British regiments, and settled in the city of Quebec, where he was a professor of and taught music for many years, and died at an advanced age. Charles was educated at the Montreal College, taking a full course, and afterwards studied law with Peltier and Bourret. In 1843 he was admitted to the bar, and after practising his profession for three years, entered the service of the City Corporation as assistant city clerk. ”

“ John Knight was paymaster of a battalion of the King’s German Legion from 1814 to 1816. He was with his battalion at the battle of Waterloo, and after the campaign he married the beautiful (and wealthy) daughter of the banker through whom he drew the pay at Brussels. The marriage brought him into contact with large financial interests on the Continent, and he settled at Antwerp as a banker; and there he made the acquaintance of Wappers. I remember Wappers very well. In his later years he lived in Paris, and I used to go to his house there. ”

“ I have heard of over-bold men being smote by the evil eye of a beldam hag; and I once knew a man of unquenchable gaiety suddenly made mute and melancholy by the weight of a blow dealt by a hand which was not to be seen: the remainder of his life was spent in sorrowful penance. They say these spirits are quick to punish rashness."
"As Lord Charles commands we must do his bidding," replied the forester. "When the business in hand must be done, I never stop to think of the danger of it. If we should not get back, Lord Charles has as good men to fill our places. ”

“ He had managed it that Charles should sit alone in the gray parlor and wait while he met the girl out in the entrance to the orchard and walked away with her to a sheltered place overlooking the river. There was no hint of the queen of the air in her demure dress, the well-sheathed curls, the small prunella slippers that peered from under the deep hem of her gray gown, but her bearing was queenly as she waited for him to speak. He saw that he was treading on dangerous ground.
"Do you really like such childish play?" ”

“ Who can foresee the danger to which your majesty may expose your sacred person?" "Forward!" replied the resolute monarch in an imperative tone; and as he stopped before the door of the council-chamber, "Quick! your keys!" said he to the keeper. He pushed the door violently with his foot, and the noise, repeated by the echoes of the vaulted roof, resounded through the gallery like the report of a cannon. The old keeper trembled; he tried one key, then another, but without success; his hand shook, his sight was confused. "A soldier, and afraid?" cried Charles with a smile. ”

“ They destroyed each other's peace by petty disputes and jars about things of little consequence, in which they each had scarcely any interest except a desire to carry the point and triumph over the other. King Charles himself preserved a record of one of these disputes. The queen had received, at the time of her marriage, certain estates, consisting of houses and lands, the income of which was to be at her disposal, and she wished to appoint certain treasurers to take charge of this property. She had made out a list of these officers in consultation with her mother. ”