_Page 93. Oath by the Swan._--It was also the custom during the middle ages to serve with great pomp a pheasant, or some other noble bird, on which the knights swore to visit the Holy Land. In 1453, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, vowed, _sur le faisan_, to go to the deliverance of Constantinople. His example was followed by the barons and knights assembled, who, in the words of Gibbon, "swore to God, the Virgin, the ladies and the pheasant." _Page 107. A swearing corps d'elite._--So long ago as the reign of Henry VIII. the expression "to swear like a lord" had become proverbial:--"For they wyll say he that swereth depe, swereth like a lorde."--'_The Governour_,' _by Sir T. Elyot_, 1531, _ed. Croft_, i. 275. That the habit was making headway in high places may also be inferred from a bequest in one of the wills preserved in Doctors' Commons, in which the testator bequeathed a legacy of twenty shillings on condition that the legatee should desist from swearing. The will is that of Sir David Owen, a natural son of Owen Tudor, and is dated 1535. _Page 121. Sir David Lindsay._--Some idea of the fecundity of the old poet in the matter of expletives is conveyed by the catalogue of oaths culled from the 'Satyre of the Three Estaitis' and added to Chalmers' edition of Lindsay, published in 1806. The list is as follows:-- "Be Cokis passion. Be Godis passion. Be Cok's deir passion. Be Cok's tois. Be God's wounds. Be God's croce. Be God's mother. Be God's breid. Be God's gown. Be God himsell. Be greit God that all has wrocht. Be him that made the mone. Be the gude Lord. Be him that wore the crown of thorn. Be him that bare the cruel crown of thorn. Be him that herryit hell. Be him that Judas sauld. Be the rude. Be the Trinity; Be the haly Trinity. Be the sacrament; Be the haly sacrament. Be the messe. Be him that our Lord Jesus sauld. Be him that deir Jesus sauld. Be our Lady; Be Sainct Mary; Be sweit Sainct Mary; Be Mary bricht. Be Alhallows. Be Sanct James. Be Sanct Michell. Be Sanct Ann. Be Sanct Bryde; Be Bryde's bell. Be Sanct Geill; Be sweit Sanct Geill. Be Sanct Blais. Be Sanct Blane. Be Sanct Clone; Be Sanct Clune. Be Sanct Allan. Be Sanct Fillane. Be Sanct Tan. Be Sanct Dyonis of France. Be Sanct Maverne. Be the gude lady that me bare. Be my saul. Be my thrift. Be my Christendom. Be this day." Against this list we may place a similar catalogue of objurgations extracted from the old play of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle,' acted at Cambridge in 1566. This work, ascribed to John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells, very plainly depicts the condition of rustic manners at the period at which it was written:--