principle of our law that no subject can confer knighthood except by the king’s authority.” So says Hallam. The most extraordinary law or custom of this reign with respect to chivalry was, that any man who possessed an annual income of fifteen pounds derived from land, was to be _compelled_ to receive the honor of knighthood. The successor of Henry, Edward I., was of a far more knightly quality. Faithful in love, intrepid in battle, generous to the needy, and courteous to all--except when his temper was crossed--he may pass muster as a very respectable knight. He was active and strong, and, with one hand on the back of his steed, could vault, at a single bound, into the saddle. Few men cared less for finery. He was even reproved on one occasion by a bishop, for being dressed beneath his dignity of either king or knight. “Father,” said Edward, “what could I do more in royal robes than in this plain gaberdine?” Edward would have acted little in the spirit of a true knight if he had really acted toward the Bards, according to the cruel fashion recorded in history. I am inclined to believe with Davies, in his “Mythology of the Druids,” that this king has been calumniated in this respect. “There is not the name,” says Davies, “of a single bard upon record who suffered either by his hand or by his orders. His real act was the removal of that patronage, under which the bards had, hitherto, cherished the heathenish superstition of their ancestors, to the disgrace of our native princes.” This king showed a feeling common with many knights, that however indifferently they might look living, in rusty armor or faded mantle, they should wear a decent and comely covering when dead. Thus he ordered that every year his tomb should be opened, and his remains covered with a new cere-cloth or pall. It was a pride akin to that of Mrs. Oldfield’s, in the days of our grandmothers, who was buried in a Brussels lace head-dress, a Holland shift with tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, and a pair of new kid gloves. The same weakness of nature marked both the tragedy-queen and the actual king; and it marks many more than they. There was more humility, however, in the second Duke Richard of Normandy, who was far more chivalrous than Edward I., and who ordered his body to be buried at the church-door, where passengers might tread upon it, and the spouts from the roof discharge their water upon it. It was in the religious spirit of chivalry that Edward I. expelled the Jews. One curious result is said to have followed. Report alleges that many of the Jewish families fled into Scotland, where “they have propagated ever since in great numbers; witness the aversion this nation has above others to hog’s flesh.”