Equerry

“ Opposed more directly to each other than they had previously been, the king and the earl exerted their prowess to the utmost—one animated by hope, the other urged by despair. The example of such leaders was not, of course, lost; and men of all ranks in the two armies strained every nerve, and struggled hand to hand with their adversaries. ”

“ In this task women bore their part, the youths being ever treated as sons of the lord or knight under whose tutelage they had been placed; from this they became promoted to the rank of esquires, and perfected in the arts of tilting, riding, hunting, and hawking, frequently of music, and in case of war were qualified to follow the banner of their instructors. The rank or military renown of a baron helped to swell the list of esquires and pages in his retinue ”

“ Having shewn the Dignity and Honours of the Equestrian Order among the Romans, we shall now touch upon the Degrees of Knighthood which have been Personal, and may be comprehended under the Modern Title of Equites Aurati, or Milites Simplices, (as distinguish’d from the several Orders of Chivalry, instituted in Christendom.) In the Circumstance of whose Creation we confess, nothing in the Roman Ordo Equestris hath place, tho’ that might be the Ground and Original of the Dignity, and one common End in both, namely, the Pursuit of Military Exploits, and Service in the Wars. ”

“ The occasional emergence of an Equilateral from the ranks of his serf-born ancestors is welcomed, not only by the poor serfs themselves, as a gleam of light and hope shed upon the monotonous squalor of their existence, but also by the Aristocracy at large; for all the higher classes are well aware that these rare phenomena, while they do little or nothing to vulgarize their own privileges, serve as a most useful barrier against revolution from below. ”

“ And thence onward, examples furnished by all races put beyond doubt the truth that the coercive power of the chief, developing into king, and king of kings (a frequent title in the ancient East) , becomes great in proportion as conquest becomes habitual and the union of subdued societies extensive. [2] Comparisons disclose a further truth which should be ever present to us—the truth that the aggressiveness of the ruling power inside a society increases with its aggressiveness outside the society. ”

“ Two or three hundred good men of the Earl’s followers began to assemble, with their horses and arms, in obedience to the summons which had been secretly sent through the population of the district during the night. The rumour of the approaching war spread from mouth to mouth, and rude jokes and laughter followed its propagation, until the joyous clamour, becoming louder and louder, began at last to swell till the welkin was rent with the bursting shouts of the men-at-arms and soldiery, who rejoiced at the prospect of having something more serious than a tourney to do with. ”

“ Let your right hand display awesome deeds. 5Your arrows are sharp.
The nations fall under you, with arrows in the heart of the king’s enemies. 6Your throne, God, is forever and ever.
A scepter of equity is the scepter of your kingdom. 7You have loved righteousness, and hated wickedness. ”

“ If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Isa. 1:18-20. "They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint." ”

“ We have conquered them, on the field, not to usurp territory, but to place them in a condition to observe how much more their interests and permanent prosperity would be, and have ever been, promoted by the plough than the sword. ”

“ Let the proudest squire that sits at thy table rise and encounter with me in any honorable point of activity whatsoever, and if he and thou prove me not a man, send me away comfortless. If thou refuse this, as a niggard of thy cates, I will have amongst you with my sword; for rather will I die valiantly, than perish with so cowardly an extreme. ”

“ Hence the favourite expedient for men of birth, although not of fortune, was to attach themselves to some prince or magnate in whose military service they were sure of an adequate maintenance and might hope for even a rich reward in the shape of booty or of ransom. [14] It is probably to this period and these circumstances that we must look for at all events the rudimentary beginnings of the military as well as the religious orders of chivalry. ”

“ Esquireship, like knighthood, is a military dignity; and its origin is perfectly clear. In the earliest times, possibly in the days of Olybion himself, every warrior of distinction was attended by his armour-bearer. Hence in the romances of the middle ages we find the knight almost invariably attended by a subordinate personage, half-friend, half-servant, who carried his shield and other armour, and who thence acquired the designation of ecuyer, esquire, or (Anglicè) shield-bearer. ”

“ On such occasions, it was customary for the eric, or chief of each district, to select a young man from that part of the country over which he had control, and to send him to the proper place as one of the victims to be immolated at the shrine of the deceased king. ”

“ Eighteen of the centuries of the first class were called EQUITES, and must have property worth twenty thousand dollars or more. This name was given to them because at first they served in the army as horsemen, though in later times the cavalry was composed only of allied troops. The Equites were originally from the aristocracy alone, but, as the plebeians increased in wealth, many of them became rich enough to be included in this class. ”

“ The ceorl obtains the thegnly wergild if he has an estate rated for military purposes at five hides. Another version of this tradition requires of the ceorl who ‘thrives to thegn-right’ five hides of his own land, a church, a kitchen, a house in the burh, a special office in the king’s hall. To be ‘worthy of thegn-right’ may be one thing, to be a thegn, another. To be a thegn one must be some one’s thegn. The prosperous ceorl will be no thegn until he has put himself under some lord. ”

“ Since ever you battered the saints and the tools of your crafts were blunted,
Or shattered the glass in its glory and loaded yourselves with the lead.
When the usurer hunts the squire as the squire has hunted the peasant,
As sheep that are eaten of worms where men were eaten of sheep:
Now is the judgment of earth, and the weighing of past and present,
Who scorn to weep over ruins, behold your ruin and weep. ”

“ It thus naturally came to pass, that the greater number of the equites equo publico, after the exclusion of senators from the equestrian centuries, were young men.—The equestrian centuries, of which we have hitherto been treating, were only regarded as a division of the army: they did not form a distinct class or ordo in the constitution. The community, in a political point of view, was divided only into patricians and plebeians, and the equestrian centuries were composed of both. ”

“ But we are not to imagine that all who fought on horseback compleatly armed, were gentry; for, in order to compleat their squadrons, men of the lower ranks, who, by their strength of body, and military skill, were capable of service, were admitted, but this did not make them gentlemen. Hence, in our old histories, we find the knights and esquires, that is, the real gentry, carefully distinguished from the men at arms. ”

“ Why didst press me to yield up my purse without a fight? Hast so soon forgotten that thou art destined to become an esquire and an aspirant to knighthood? 'Tis a bad start to a warrior's career to counsel giving way without a fight to the first coward cut-throat we meet. Coward that I was to listen----"
"Stay, Matthew," interposed the lad; "run not on so, but examine this wallet. Perchance the fledgeling esquire is not quite so base as thou thinkest." ”

“ These two sons of the Squire, Edward and Thomas, through some traditional prejudice in the family, had always directed their views to the military profession. In such a case, the king's army is naturally that to which a young man's expectations turn. ”

“ The battle-spirit—for, despite his honest conviction, his forebears had been soldiers and sea-dogs—surged up within him. How splendid it was, this fighting down opposition! What was life, after all, but a fight? ”

“ Cid, do thou now give over the suit which thou hast made,
For the whole of thy possession into thine hands is paid.
Look that thou make not greater the feud twixt us and thee,
For the two Counts of Carrión by lineage are we.
Of kings' and emperors' daughters are we fit to win the hands;
To wed the girls of little chiefs scarce with our lineage stands. ”

“ What race would not be indolent and insouciant when things are so arranged, that they derive no advantage from forethought or exertion? If such are the arrangements in the midst of which they live and work, what wonder if the listlessness and indifference so engendered are not shaken off the first moment an opportunity offers when exertion would really be of use? ”

“ An individual eques would lean to the senatorial faction or the faction of men too poor to keep a horse for cavalry service, just as his connexions were chiefly with the one or the other. How, as a body, the equites veered round alternately to each side, we shall see hereafter. Instead of forming a sound middle class to check the excesses of both parties, they were swayed chiefly by sordid motives, and backed up the men who for the time seemed most willing or able to gratify their greed. ”

“ The incentive to exertion which is widest, most constant, and most powerful in its operations in all civilized countries, is the desire of distinction; and this may be composed either of love of fame or love of wealth or of both. ”

“ And in a book of instructions on the duties of Chivalry, we find the following: “Louange est reputée blâme en la bouche de celluy qui se loe, mais elle exaulce celluy qui ne se attribue point de louange, mais à Dieu. Si l’ecuyer a vaine gloire de ce qu’il a fait, il n’est pas digne d’étre chevalier, car vaine gloire est un vice qui destruit les merites de chevalerie.” ”

“ In fine, the esquires, short of actually fighting themselves, a thing forbidden by the code of chivalry, were expected to display the greatest zeal, the greatest skill, and the greatest courage, and consequently had it very materially in their power to contribute to their master’s success. ”

“ He is a young French émigré, who has fought with singular gallantry in the war, has submitted to the confiscation of his large estates not merely with serenity, but with cheerfulness, and has with great self-sacrifice tended and supported the old uncle who brought him up, who like himself is an émigré and who without him would be absolutely helpless—in short, there is a foundation of chivalry and unselfishness in his character. ”

“ We are now, my lords, raising armies, and hiring auxiliaries, for an expedition of which no necessity can be discovered, and from which neither honour nor advantage can be expected; we are about to force from the people the last remains of their property, and to harass with exactions those who are already languishing with poverty ”

“ Read the debate respecting the payment of Governor Eyre's expenses, and study the division-lists, and you see that acts which, according to the Lord Chief-Justice, "have brought reproach not only on those who were parties to them, but on the very name of England," can, nevertheless, find numerous defenders among men whose class-positions, military, naval, official, etc., make them love power and detest resistance. ”

“ I must confess I love to use people according to their own sense of good breeding, and therefore whipped in between the justice and the simple esquire. He could not properly take this ill, but I overheard him whisper the steward, "that he thought it hard that a common conjuror should take place of him, though an elder esquire." In this order we marched down Sheer Lane, at the upper end of which I lodge. ”

“ The Governors of Gray’s Inn, another most ancient Law School, are entitled “the Ancients”; equity is radically the same word as equus, a horse; and the Mayors, or Mares, of Britain and Brittany seemingly represented the mare-headed Demeter or Good Mother. Juge is geegee, our judges still wear horse-hair wigs of office, and the figure on the British coin here illustrated looks singularly like a brehon or barrister who has been called to the Bar.
Fig. 175.—British. From Akerman. ”

“ Though the equestrian centuries comprised the richest class, they seem to have been in one respect little better than beggars on horseback, for each eques received from the treasury a sum for the purchase of his horse and an annual grant for its maintenance. ”

“ The defensive armour of a horse illustrated the necessity of wealth to a knight; for a knight without estate could not maintain the honours of chivalry, and be protected from temptation, for poverty opens the door to treason and vice. ”

“ But the sons of peers themselves-the eldest as well as the younger-are merely esquires, and are ranked before, and not among, other esquires because they have a particular precedence of their own assigned to them. Similarly the eldest sons of the younger sons of peers and the eldest sons of baronets and of knights who are also esquires, and likewise the younger sons of baronets and of knights who are not esquires, have a particular precedence of their own assigned to them. ”