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. In later periods, knights selected one, or more frequently, several, of their principal or most valiant retainers, to officiate as esquires during a campaign. These, in the event of a successful issue of the war, they often enriched with lands and goods, giving them, at the same time, the privilege of bearing armorial ensigns, copied in part from their own, or otherwise, according to circumstances.[243] After such a grant the person honoured became an esquire in another sense, as the bearer of _his own shield_; and in this sense all persons at the present day whose claim to bear arms would be admitted by the proper functionaries, are virtually, _scutifers_, _armigers_, or _esquiers_. But there is a more restricted use of the term, bearing relation to the honour in a civil rather than a military aspect, as we shall shortly see. By the courtesies of common life, now-a-days, every person a little removed from the _ignobile vulgus_ claims to be an esquire; and comparatively few, even among the better informed classes, know in what esquireship really consists. For the behoof of such as are confessedly ignorant of this branch of heraldry, and are not too proud to learn, I subjoin the following particulars, gathered from various respectable authorities. REAL esquires, then, are of seven sorts: 1. Esquires of the king's body, whose number is limited to four. 2. The eldest sons of knights, and _their_ eldest sons born during their lifetime. It would seem that, in the days of antient warfare, the knight often took his eldest son into the wars for the purpose of giving him a practical military education, employing him meanwhile as his esquire. Such certainly was Chaucer's _squier_. With the knight "ther was his son, a young SQUIER, A lover, and a lusty bachelor... And he hadde be somtime in chevachie,[244] In Flaunders, in Artois, and Picardie." 3. The eldest sons of the younger sons of peers of the realm. 4. Such as the king invests with the collar of SS, including the kings of arms, heralds, &c. The dignity of esquire was conferred by Henry IV and his successors, by the investiture of the collar and the gift of a pair of silver spurs. Gower the poet was such an esquire by creation. In the ballad of the King (Edward IV) and the Tanner of Tamworth we find the frolicsome monarch creating a dealer in cowhides a squire in this manner: