A sheaf of peacock arrows bright and keen Under his belt he bare full thriftily. Well could he dress his tackle yeomanly: His arrows droopèd not with feathers low, And in his hand he bare a mighty bow.
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