If you would know how men fought in those days, read for yourselves in old Froissart's chronicle, and see how he exults in the charge of the cavalry bearing down the foe on their ponderous Flemish horses--in the solid ranks of the foot soldiers--in the flights of arrows that fall like hail from the tough bows of the archers. And when the fight is over how he glories in the tourneys and jousts--the song of troubadour and minstrel--the chase with hawk and hound. In spite of abuses, in spite of all the miseries that these protracted wars, this lust of conquest and fighting entailed, there still is something inexpressibly attractive in the nobler aspects of chivalry. To rescue the captive, to free the oppressed, to journey away into Walachy To Prussia and to Tartary, To Alexandria or Turkey, doing deeds of valor for the mere reward of a silken scarf from his lady, or, noblest of all, for the love of right and truth--is there not something admirable in this? Is not the idea of true knight and lady--"a race of noblest men and women, trying to make all below them as noble as themselves"--[23] is not that a fair ideal, worthy of imitation by all of us? The earlier phases of Chivalry with its elaborate rules, its laws written and unwritten, were past long before Cressy. The great mediæval companies of knights, which made it one of the greatest powers for good or evil in Europe, were broken up. The Crusades were over, and knights could no longer gain fame and honor by fighting against the Paynim under the banner of the Cross. But still it was in Edward the Third's reign that Chivalry entered upon a period of unequalled glory and magnificence. The Garter--the most illustrious order of English knighthood, was instituted by the king at Windsor; and he and his son were foremost to set examples of unsurpassed valor in many a deed of desperate daring. Although Chivalry was far from perfect, let us remember that Bayard "_sans pure et sans reproche_" was its ideal knight.--That many a gentle knight and squire was trying to do his best, to live worthy of his God, his King, and his Lady.--That all dignity, courtesy, purity, self-restraint, devotion--such as they were understood in those rough days--centred themselves round the idea of _the rider_ as the attributes of the man whose supposed duty, as well as his supposed right, was to govern his fellow men, by example as well as by law and force;--attributes which gathered themselves up into that one word--Chivalry: an idea, which, perfect or imperfect, God forbid that mankind should ever forget, till it has become the possession--as it is the God-given right--of the poorest slave that ever trudged on foot.[24] And when we look on young John of Eltham's noble face, let us believe that had he grown to man's estate, "Mary, daughter of Ferdinand, King of Spain," might have said to him: