Weald of Kent

“ If weapon be drawn where men drink, and no harm be done; a shilling to the owner of the house, and 12 shillings to the king.
After a troublous time of encroachment from the side of Wessex, the kingdom of Kent had again a time of honour, if not of absolute independence, under king Wihtred (691-725) , who, in the preamble to his laws, is called the most gracious king of the Kentish folk (se mildesta cyning Cantwara) . His laws are mostly ecclesiastical. ”

“ There was an intense stillness in the room as they eyed each other, Kent inflexible, the king distressed, and the chancellor open-mouthed at such uncompromising words. The old baron was the most affected and stood as if stupefied with astonishment. For a pregnant time he met Kent's stare and then suddenly chuckled in his throat with a queer, wise acceptance. He turned to the king and exploded, much as an explorer might have done on announcing a discovery. "Why, Karl! You've got a friend who is a man! By Saint Dominique! This is a man!" ”

“ Ine [q. v.] led an expedition against Kent to avenge the death of his kinsman Mul, but King Wihtred succeeded in appeasing his wrath with a large money fine or wergild. It has been conjectured that the submissive attitude of Kent was due to the defeat of its allies, East-Anglia and Essex. Wihtred's reign was long, peaceful, and prosperous, extending over thirty-four years. ”

“ He stared in a kindly way at the king for a moment, as if expecting the latter to dispute, and then added, grimly, "If I were in your place, I'd not let this man Provarsk win so easily. I'd fight!"
"I would, if I knew how!" The king spoke impetuously.
"But you must have some friend who can assist you," suggested Kent. "Some man you can depend upon." ”

“ Tenterden is named, says an old Kentish writer, as “some vulgar fancies conjecture, from the tenderness of its soil”; Feversham, says another old Kentish writer, Phillipott, useful as an historian, useless to etymologists, “is an unhealthy town, and carries the tokens of it in its name.” Id. est., the home of fevers! Harbledown, says Black, is so-called “in allusion to its grassy downs and hills,” as if grassiness were not a characteristic of any and every down and hill in Kent. ”

“ He had loved Kent yesterday, when Kent had stood clean in the eyes of both God and men, and he still loved him today, when his soul was stained with a thing that must be washed away with his own life. ”

“ Kent leaned back and laughed quietly.
"Listen!" he said. "There are just two ways of reasoning with a man who tries to throw you out of your own house. If he is big enough to do it, grin and move. If he isn't, call for the police or take a club and chase him into the middle of the next block. It appears they were strong enough to put you out, so—here you are!"
"No, you are wrong," disputed the king. "It was not the people who caused me to leave. It was my cousin, Baron Provarsk, who wants to rule in my place, and who laughs and snaps his fingers at any idea of reform." ”

“ Almost the first burst of that noble tide of passion, which runs through the play, is in the remonstrance of Kent to his royal master on the injustice of his sentence against his youngest daughter—‘Be Kent unmannerly, when Lear is mad!’ This manly plainness, which draws down on him the displeasure of the unadvised king, is worthy of the fidelity with which he adheres to his fallen fortunes. ”

“ In June, at the crisis of interest, the Camerons came over, and took the fine old house of Surrenden Dering in Kent which they made a sort of country-house to the Embassy. Kent has charms rivalling those of Shropshire, and, even compared with the many beautiful places scattered along the Welsh border, few are nobler or more genial than Surrenden with its unbroken descent from the Saxons, its avenues, its terraces, its deer-park, its large repose on the Kentish hill-side, and its broad outlook over what was once the forest of Anderida. ”

“ Provarsk declared, contemptuously. "I'm doing it for my own good and no one's else."
"How do you propose to handle the king?" demanded Kent.
"He'll have to do what I want him to, for the simplest of reasons, that I shall have the people behind me. He'll get nothing! He can be king. That's enough for him." ”

“ The Kentish man’s liberty was his marked characteristic in the Middle Ages—a characteristic which had come down to him from the earliest Kentish settlers. Descended partly from Frisians—who were themselves, as the remnant of their ancient language shows, also of the old Gothic stock—and strongly marked by their love of freedom, the people of Kent preserved, through all the changes of the Anglo-Saxon period and the later powerful influences of feudalism, their free institutions, the relics of which, in the customs incidental to the gavelkind land tenure, have come down to our time. ”

“ The falling of one of the beams of the ceiling could scarcely have proven more startling to the three refugees by the fireplace. The king pivoted in his chair and faced Kent with a look of consternation. The princess, aghast, opened her eyes widely, and the chancellor, bristling with annoyance, jumped to his feet and roared loudly, "What business have you listening? Do you know whom you are addressing?"
To a man who, throughout his life, had been accustomed to see his hearers quail when he vented that tremendous roar, the effect was more than disappointing. ”

“ The isolation of Sussex is strikingly shown by its long adherence to the primitive paganism. Missionaries from Rome, under the guidance of Augustine, converted Kent as early as 597. For Kent was the nearest kingdom to the continent; it contained the chief port of entry for continental travellers, Richborough—the Dover of those days—and its king, accustomed to continental connections, had married a Christian Frankish princess from Paris. Hence Kent was naturally the first Teutonic principality to receive the faith. Next came Northumbria, Lindsey, East Anglia, Wessex, and even inland Mercia. ”

“ William Mason, in the ‘English Garden,’ praises Kent's landscape gardening at the expense of his painting; and even Horace Walpole, who regarded him as a genius in other branches of art, tells us that Kent's portraits ‘bore little resemblance to the persons who sat for them, and the colouring was worse,’ and that ‘in his ceilings Kent's drawing was as defective as the colouring of his portraits, and as void of every merit.’ He adds that Sir Robert Walpole would not permit him to work in colours at Houghton, but restrained him to chiaroscuro. ”

“ Kent. Who's there? Fool. Marry, here's grace and a codpiece; that's a wise man and a fool. Kent. Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night Love not such nights as these. The wrathful skies Gallow the very wanderers of the dark And make them keep their caves. Since I was man, Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never Remember to have heard. Man's nature cannot carry Th' affliction nor the fear. Lear. Let the great gods, That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads, Find out their enemies now. ”

“ The king shook his head sadly.
"There are many who like me," he said; "but they fear Provarsk."
"Pooh!" Kent accompanied himself with a snap of his fingers.
"If His Majesty would run the risk of a war——" began the chancellor.
"Rubbish!" exclaimed Kent. "War, nothing! The thing to do is to beat him at his own game. See here, young man,—I beg Your Majesty's pardon—you've got to do it! You've got to be one of two things, a king or a coward. You've got to decide to-night, too, before the people of Marken know that you have been driven out by Provarsk. ”

“ The old man smiled a wry smile, nodded to Von Glutz, and favoured Kent with a harsh stare from under his scowling eyebrows.
"It's all right!" said the king. "We can talk freely. This is an American gentleman, Mr. Kent, who is the agent for John Rhodes, the financial magnate."
"Oh! Can't he collect interest in daylight?" demanded the irascible old man. "Since when did you begin to make night journeys with money lenders?"
Kent stood unmoved; but the king rushed to his defence.
"Baron," he asserted, steadily, "Mr. Kent has proved to be my friend. As such I am certain you will regard him." ”

“ At times Kent quite held his breath, so intangible and unreal seemed the loveliness that he was trying to imprison within the four edges of his canvas. At other times the dream-maiden fled, and in her place sat a girl, none the less beautiful, none the less charming, but real and bewitchingly human. It was at such times that Kent and his model talked. ”

“ Kent! Kent!"
They saw him, the man who loathed publicity, quail like a bashful youth, and saw the princess catch his hand and almost drag him toward the balcony. Then he seemed to recall something that must be done and braced himself, and strode forward. He stopped abruptly just inside the door and motioned to the king. The king smiled and stepped out, followed by the princess. Like the abrupt discharge of heavy guns the noise renewed as Kent followed them, and Von Glutz and Paulo, rigid, unmoved, came behind and took their posts in the background like watch dogs of state. ”

“ Kent paced the room thoughtfully, and at last, with a kindly air, walked across and laid his hand on the king's shoulder.
"You are not a king to me," he said, quietly. "You are just a fine, brave young fellow, with high ideals, who deserves a chance. I hate to see as decent a young chap as you are fail, irretrievably, for the want of some one to back him, and to show him the way through. We don't have kings in my country; but we have the young fellows. ”

“ MEN OF KENT AND KENTISH MEN. (Vol. v., p. 321.)
In your answers to Minor Queries (Vol. v., p. 321.) I find it stated, that the inhabitants of the part of Kent lying between Rochester and London being invicti, have ever since (the Norman Conquest) been designated as Men of Kent; while those to the eastward, through whose district the Conqueror marched unopposed, are only "Kentish Men." ”

“ It was on the 29th October that I went into Kent for the second and last time. That was the occasion when my other sixpenny porter failed me by putting me in the wrong carriage of my train, whereby I found myself at Rochester when C. was waiting for me at Maidstone. When I reached her house (to hear that she was still abroad searching for me) or, rather, when we met at last at the compensating tea-table, and I had leisure of mind to appreciate my surroundings, I thought Kent even lovelier than in the month of hop and apple harvest. ”

“ This was the price for arousing a slothful, shortsighted people and teaching them roads to wealth and ambition. The poorest churl in the fields had learned the value of his own earning power and profited, while others, who had been worse than hopeless, had seen the way to independence. Kent wondered if, after all, he had not taught them greed instead of industry, independence, and patriotism. He heard some one coming rapidly along the corridor, the guard's heels coming to a salute, and the door opened and the king entered, his whole personality radiating indignation. ”

“ The king, regardless of everything, forgetful of all save the terrific song which for centuries had led his people to the heights of endeavour, there to be crowned with death or victory, shut his eyes, threw his head back and sang with them. With a final outpouring of fervent wishes, the crowd saw him pass through the door, followed last of all by the white-headed old baron. The noise died away, and the palace gardens began to empty. The king looked around the room for Kent. ”

“ When the old king was dying, he could not be made to understand how Caius and Kent could be the same person.—Shakespeare, King Lear (1605) .
Kent (The Fair Maid of) , Joan, only daughter of Edmund Plantaganet, earl of Kent. She married thrice: (1) William de Montacute, earl of Salisbury, from whom she was divorced; (2) Sir Thomas Holland; and (3) her second cousin, Edward, the Black Prince, by whom she became the mother of Richard II.
Kent (Margaret) , a handsome, proud woman, whose husband deserts her and lives in South America with a mistress, leaving her to support herself and child. ”

“ Abruptly Kent scowled at him and stood erect. Almost resentfully, he said, "The princess requires no champion. She appears abundantly able to fight her own battles. Better, I might suggest, than some of those stalwarts around her."
Heedless of the chancellor's discomfiture, he walked around the desk and seated himself, with all the air of energy and business capability that dominated him when on guard. He folded the scattered papers, placed them in an envelope, put them back into the despatch box, and then brusquely turned toward the king. ”

“ Kent's eyes glowed with interest.
"That guard of yours," he declared, "is due for a good commission after this is over. I seem to have overlooked him." He meditated for a moment, and then to the king's surprise, as if vastly relieved, leaned back in his chair and laughed.
"Amateur work, after all!" he declared. "I'm disappointed! Provarsk had me guessing, last night. I thought he was a much cleverer fighter than I had believed him to be. He always boggles in the end."
"I don't see the joke!" exclaimed the king, but more hopefully.
"Why, it is this way," explained Kent. "Plain as day now. ”

“ WIHTRED, WIHTRED, king of Kent (d. 725) , son of Ecgberht, nephew of Hlothhere and brother of Eadric, came to the Kentish throne in 690 after the period of anarchy which followed the death of the latter king. Bede states that Wihtred and Swefheard were both kings in Kent in 692, and this statement would appear to imply a period of East Saxon influence (see Kent) , while there is also evidence of an attack by Wessex. Wihtred, however, seems to have become sole king in 694. At his death, which did not take place until 725, he left the kingdom to his sons Aethelberht, Eadberht and Alric. ”