WHEN the king
traveled for change of air,
or made a progress, or visited
a distant noble whom he
wished to bankrupt with the cost of his keep, part of
the administration moved with him. It was a fashion
of the time. The Commission charged with the examination of candidates for posts
in the army came with the king
to the Valley, whereas they
could have
transacted their business just as well at home. And
although this expedition was strictly a holiday excursion for the king, he kept
some of his business functions
going just the same. He touched
for the evil, as usual; he
held court in the gate at sunrise
and tried
cases, for he was himself Chief Justice of the King's
Bench.
He shone very well in this
latter office. He was a wise
and humane judge, and he clearly
did his honest best and fairest,
-- according to his lights. That
is a large reservation. His lights
-- I mean his rearing -- often
colored his decisions. Whenever
there was a dispute between a
noble or gentleman and a person
of lower degree, the king's leanings
and sympathies were for the former
class always, whether he suspected
it or not. It was impossible
that this should be otherwise.
The blunting effects of slavery
upon the slaveholder's moral
perceptions are known and conceded,
the world over; and a privileged
class, an aristocracy, is but
a band of slaveholders under
another name. This has a harsh
sound, and yet should not be
offensive to any -- even to the
noble himself -- unless the fact
itself be an offense: for the
statement simply formulates a
fact. The repulsive feature of
slavery is the THING, not its
name. One needs but to hear an
aristocrat speak of the classes
that are below him to recognize
-- and in but indifferently modified
measure -- the very air and tone
of the actual slaveholder; and
behind these are the slaveholder's
spirit, the slaveholder's blunted
feeling. They are the result
of the same cause in both cases:
the possessor's old and inbred
custom of regarding himself as
a superior being. The king's
judgments wrought frequent injustices,
but it was merely the fault of
his training, his natural and
unalterable sympathies. He was
as unfitted for a judgeship as
would be the average mother for
the position of milk-distributor
to starving children in famine-time;
her own children would fare a
shade better than the rest.
One very curious case came
before the king. A young girl,
an orphan, who had a considerable
estate, married a fine young
fellow who had nothing. The girl's
property was within a seigniory
held by the Church. The bishop
of the diocese, an arrogant scion
of the great nobility, claimed
the girl's estate on the ground
that she had married privately,
and thus had cheated the Church
out of one of its rights as lord
of the seigniory -- the one heretofore
referred to as le droit du seigneur.
The penalty of refusal or avoidance
was confiscation. The girl's
defense was, that the lordship
of the seigniory was vested in
the bishop, and the particular
right here involved was not transferable,
but must be exercised by the
lord himself or stand vacated;
and that an older law, of the
Church itself, strictly barred
the bishop from exercising it.
It was a very odd case, indeed.
It reminded me of something
I had read in my youth about
the ingenious way in which the
aldermen of London raised the
money that built the Mansion
House. A person who had not taken
the Sacrament according to the
Anglican rite could not stand
as a candidate for sheriff of
London. Thus Dissenters were
ineligible; they could not run
if asked, they could not serve
if elected. The aldermen, who
without any question were Yankees
in disguise, hit upon this neat
device: they passed a by-law
imposing a fine of L400 upon
any one who should refuse to
be a candidate for sheriff, and
a fine of L600 upon any person
who, after being elected sheriff,
refused to serve. Then they went
to work and elected a lot of
Dissenters, one after another,
and kept it up until they had
collected L15,000 in fines; and
there stands the stately Mansion
House to this day, to keep the
blushing citizen in mind of a
long past and lamented day when
a band of Yankees slipped into
London and played games of the
sort that has given their race
a unique and shady reputation
among all truly good and holy
peoples that be in the earth.
The girl's case seemed strong
to me; the bishop's case was
just as strong. I did not see
how the king was going to get
out of this hole. But he got
out. I append his decision:
"Truly I find
small difficulty here, the
matter being even a
child's affair for simpleness.
An the young bride had conveyed
notice, as in duty bound, to
her feudal lord and proper master
and protector the bishop, she
had suffered no loss, for the
said bishop could have got a
dispensation making him, for
temporary conveniency, eligible
to the exercise of his said right,
and thus would she have kept
all she had. Whereas, failing
in her first duty, she hath by
that failure failed in all; for
whoso, clinging to a rope, severeth
it above his hands, must fall;
it being no defense to claim
that the rest of the rope is
sound, neither any deliverance
from his peril, as he shall find.
Pardy, the woman's case is rotten
at the source. It is the decree
of the court that she forfeit
to the said lord bishop all her
goods, even to the last farthing
that she doth possess, and be
thereto mulcted in the costs.
Next!"
Here was a tragic end to a
beautiful honeymoon not yet three
months old. Poor young creatures!
They had lived these three months
lapped to the lips in worldly
comforts. These clothes and trinkets
they were wearing were as fine
and dainty as the shrewdest stretch
of the sumptuary laws allowed
to people of their degree; and
in these pretty clothes, she
crying on his shoulder, and he
trying to comfort her with hopeful
words set to the music of despair,
they went from the judgment seat
out into the world homeless,
bedless, breadless; why, the
very beggars by the roadsides
were not so poor as they.
Well, the king
was out of the hole; and on
terms satisfactory
to the Church and the rest of
the aristocracy, no doubt. Men
write many fine and plausible
arguments in support of monarchy,
but the fact remains that where
every man in a State has a vote,
brutal laws are impossible. Arthur's
people were of course poor material
for a republic, because they
had been debased so long by monarchy;
and yet even they would have
been intelligent enough to make
short work of that law which
the king had just been administering
if it had been submitted to their
full and free vote. There is
a phrase which has grown so common
in the world's mouth that it
has come to seem to have sense
and meaning -- the sense and
meaning implied when it is used;
that is the phrase which refers
to this or that or the other
nation as possibly being "capable
of selfgovernment"; and the implied
sense of it is, that there has
been a nation somewhere, some
time or other which WASN'T capable
of it -- wasn't as able to govern
itself as some self-appointed
specialists were or would be
to govern it. The master minds
of all nations, in all ages,
have sprung in affluent multitude
from the mass of the nation,
and from the mass of the nation
only -- not from its privileged
classes; and so, no matter what
the nation's intellectual grade
was; whether high or low, the
bulk of its ability was in the
long ranks of its nameless and
its poor, and so it never saw
the day that it had not the material
in abundance whereby to govern
itself. Which is to assert an
always self-proven fact: that
even the best governed and most
free and most enlightened monarchy
is still behind the best condition
attainable by its people; and
that the same is true of kindred
governments of lower grades,
all the way down to the lowest.
King Arthur had hurried up
the army business altogether
beyond my calculations. I had
not supposed he would move in
the matter while I was away;
and so I had not mapped out a
scheme for determining the merits
of officers; I had only remarked
that it would be wise to submit
every candidate to a sharp and
searching examination; and privately
I meant to put together a list
of military qualifications that
nobody could answer to but my
West Pointers. That ought to
have been attended to before
I left; for the king was so taken
with the idea of a standing army
that he couldn't wait but must
get about it at once, and get
up as good a scheme of examination
as he could invent out of his
own head.
I was impatient to see what
this was; and to show, too, how
much more admirable was the one
which I should display to the
Examining Board. I intimated
this, gently, to the king, and
it fired his curiosity When the
Board was assembled, I followed
him in; and behind us came the
candidates. One of these candidates
was a bright young West Pointer
of mine, and with him were a
couple of my West Point professors.
When I saw the Board, I did
not know whether to cry or to
laugh. The head of it was the
officer known to later centuries
as Norroy King-at-Arms! The two
other members were chiefs of
bureaus in his department; and
all three were priests, of course;
all officials who had to know
how to read and write were priests.
My candidate was called first,
out of courtesy to me, and the
head of the Board opened on him
with official solemnity:
"Name?"
"Mal-ease."
"Son of?"
"Webster."
"Webster --
Webster. H'm -- I -- my memory
faileth to recall
the name. Condition?"
"Weaver."
"Weaver! --
God keep us!"
The king was staggered, from
his summit to his foundations;
one clerk fainted, and the others
came near it. The chairman pulled
himself together, and said indignantly:
"It is sufficient.
Get you hence."
But I appealed to the king.
I begged that my candidate might
be examined. The king was willing,
but the Board, who were all well-born
folk, implored the king to spare
them the indignity of examining
the weaver's son. I knew they
didn't know enough to examine
him anyway, so I joined my prayers
to theirs and the king turned
the duty over to my professors.
I had had a blackboard prepared,
and it was put up now, and the
circus began. It was beautiful
to hear the lad lay out the science
of war, and wallow in details
of battle and siege, of supply,
transportation, mining and countermining,
grand tactics, big strategy and
little strategy, signal service,
infantry, cavalry, artillery,
and all about siege guns, field
guns, gatling guns, rifled guns,
smooth bores, musket practice,
revolver practice -- and not
a solitary word of it all could
these catfish make head or tail
of, you understand -- and it
was handsome to see him chalk
off mathematical nightmares on
the blackboard that would stump
the angels themselves, and do
it like nothing, too -- all about
eclipses, and comets, and solstices,
and constellations, and mean
time, and sidereal time, and
dinner time, and bedtime, and
every other imaginable thing
above the clouds or under them
that you could harry or bullyrag
an enemy with and make him wish
he hadn't come -- and when the
boy made his military salute
and stood aside at last, I was
proud enough to hug him, and
all those other people were so
dazed they looked partly petrified,
partly drunk, and wholly caught
out and snowed under. I judged
that the cake was ours, and by
a large majority.
Education is
a great thing. This was the
same youth who had
come to West Point so ignorant
that when I asked him, "If a
general officer should have a
horse shot under him on the field
of battle, what ought he to do?" answered
up naively and said:
"Get up and
brush himself."
One of the young nobles was
called up now. I thought I would
question him a little myself.
I said:
"Can your lordship
read?"
His face flushed indignantly,
and he fired this at me:
"Takest me
for a clerk? I trow I am not
of a blood that --"
"Answer the
question!"
He crowded
his wrath down and made out
to answer "No."
"Can you write?"
He wanted to resent this, too,
but I said:
"You will confine
yourself to the questions,
and make no
comments. You are not here to
air your blood or your graces,
and nothing of the sort will
be permitted. Can you write?"
"No."
"Do you know
the multiplication table?"
"I wit not
what ye refer to."
"How much is
9 times 6?"
"It is a mystery
that is hidden from me by reason
that the emergency
requiring the fathoming of it
hath not in my life-days occurred,
and so, not having no need to
know this thing, I abide barren
of the knowledge."
"If A trade
a barrel of onions to B, worth
2 pence the bushel,
in exchange for a sheep worth
4 pence and a dog worth a penny,
and C kill the dog before delivery,
because bitten by the same, who
mistook him for D, what sum is
still due to A from B, and which
party pays for the dog, C or
D, and who gets the money? If
A, is the penny sufficient, or
may he claim consequential damages
in the form of additional money
to represent the possible profit
which might have inured from
the dog, and classifiable as
earned increment, that is to
say, usufruct?"
"Verily, in
the all-wise and unknowable
providence of God,
who moveth in mysterious ways
his wonders to perform, have
I never heard the fellow to this
question for confusion of the
mind and congestion of the ducts
of thought. Wherefore I beseech
you let the dog and the onions
and these people of the strange
and godless names work out their
several salvations from their
piteous and wonderful difficulties
without help of mine, for indeed
their trouble is sufficient as
it is, whereas an I tried to
help I should but damage their
cause the more and yet mayhap
not live myself to see the desolation
wrought."
"What do you
know of the laws of attraction
and gravitation?"
"If there be
such, mayhap his grace the
king did promulgate
them whilst that I lay sick about
the beginning of the year and
thereby failed to hear his proclamation."
"What do you
know of the science of optics?"
"I know of
governors of places, and seneschals
of castles, and
sheriffs of counties, and many
like small offices and titles
of honor, but him you call the
Science of Optics I have not
heard of before; peradventure
it is a new dignity."
"Yes, in this
country."
Try to conceive of this mollusk
gravely applying for an official
position, of any kind under the
sun! Why, he had all the earmarks
of a typewriter copyist, if you
leave out the disposition to
contribute uninvited emendations
of your grammar and punctuation.
It was unaccountable that he
didn't attempt a little help
of that sort out of his majestic
supply of incapacity for the
job. But that didn't prove that
he hadn't material in him for
the disposition, it only proved
that he wasn't a typewriter copyist
yet. After nagging him a little
more, I let the professors loose
on him and they turned him inside
out, on the line of scientific
war, and found him empty, of
course. He knew somewhat about
the warfare of the time -- bushwhacking
around for ogres, and bull-fights
in the tournament ring, and such
things -- but otherwise he was
empty and useless. Then we took
the other young noble in hand,
and he was the first one's twin,
for ignorance and incapacity.
I delivered them into the hands
of the chairman of the Board
with the comfortable consciousness
that their cake was dough. They
were examined in the previous
order of precedence.
"Name, so please
you?"
"Pertipole,
son of Sir Pertipole, Baron
of Barley Mash."
"Grandfather?"
"Also Sir Pertipole,
Baron of Barley Mash."
"Great-grandfather?"
"The same name
and title."
"Great-great-grandfather?"
"We had none,
worshipful sir, the line failing
before it had
reached so far back."
"It mattereth
not. It is a good four generations,
and fulfilleth
the requirements of the rule."
"Fulfills what rule?" I
asked.
"The rule requiring
four generations of nobility
or else the candidate
is not eligible."
"A man not
eligible for a lieutenancy
in the army unless he can prove
four generations of noble descent?"
"Even so; neither
lieutenant nor any other officer
may be
commissioned without that qualification."
"Oh, come,
this is an astonishing thing.
What good is such a qualification
as that?"
"What good?
It is a hardy question, fair
sir and Boss, since it doth
go far to impugn the wisdom of
even our holy Mother Church herself."
"As how?"
"For that she
hath established the self-same
rule regarding
saints. By her law none may be
canonized until he hath lain
dead four generations."
"I see, I see
-- it is the same thing. It
is wonderful.
In the one case a man lies dead-alive
four generations -- mummified
in ignorance and sloth -- and
that qualifies him to command
live people, and take their weal
and woe into his impotent hands;
and in the other case, a man
lies bedded with death and worms
four generations, and that qualifies
him for office in the celestial
camp. Does the king's grace approve
of this strange law?"
The king said:
"Why, truly
I see naught about it that
is strange. All places
of honor and of profit do belong,
by natural right, to them that
be of noble blood, and so these
dignities in the army are their
property and would be so without
this or any rule. The rule is
but to mark a limit. Its purpose
is to keep out too recent blood,
which would bring into contempt
these offices, and men of lofty
lineage would turn their backs
and scorn to take them. I were
to blame an I permitted this
calamity. YOU can permit it an
you are minded so to do, for
you have the delegated authority,
but that the king should do it
were a most strange madness and
not comprehensible to any."
"I yield. Proceed,
sir Chief of the Herald's College. "
The chairman resumed as follows:
"By what illustrious
achievement for the honor of
the Throne and
State did the founder of your
great line lift himself to the
sacred dignity of the British
nobility?"
"He built a
brewery."
"Sire, the
Board finds this candidate
perfect in all the
requirements and qualifications
for military command, and doth
hold his case open for decision
after due examination of his
competitor."
The competitor came forward
and proved exactly four generations
of nobility himself. So there
was a tie in military qualifications
that far.
He stood aside a moment, and
Sir Pertipole was questioned
further:
"Of what condition
was the wife of the founder
of your line?"
"She came of
the highest landed gentry,
yet she was not noble;
she was gracious and pure and
charitable, of a blameless life
and character, insomuch that
in these regards was she peer
of the best lady in the land."
"That will do. Stand down." He
called up the competing lordling
again, and asked: "What was the
rank and condition of the great-grandmother
who conferred British nobility
upon your great house?"
"She was a
king's leman and did climb
to that splendid eminence
by her own unholpen merit from
the sewer where she was born."
"Ah, this,
indeed, is true nobility, this
is the right and
perfect intermixture. The lieutenancy
is yours, fair lord. Hold it
not in contempt; it is the humble
step which will lead to grandeurs
more worthy of the splendor of
an origin like to thine."
I was down in the bottomless
pit of humiliation. I had promised
myself an easy and zenith-scouring
triumph, and this was the outcome!
I was almost ashamed to look
my poor disappointed cadet in
the face. I told him to go home
and be patient, this wasn't the
end.
I had a private audience with
the king, and made a proposition.
I said it was quite right to
officer that regiment with nobilities,
and he couldn't have done a wiser
thing. It would also be a good
idea to add five hundred officers
to it; in fact, add as many officers
as there were nobles and relatives
of nobles in the country, even
if there should finally be five
times as many officers as privates
in it; and thus make it the crack
regiment, the envied regiment,
the King's Own regiment, and
entitled to fight on its own
hook and in its own way, and
go whither it would and come
when it pleased, in time of war,
and be utterly swell and independent.
This would make that regiment
the heart's desire of all the
nobility, and they would all
be satisfied and happy. Then
we would make up the rest of
the standing army out of commonplace
materials, and officer it with
nobodies, as was proper -- nobodies
selected on a basis of mere efficiency
-- and we would make this regiment
toe the line, allow it no aristocratic
freedom from restraint, and force
it to do all the work and persistent
hammering, to the end that whenever
the King's Own was tired and
wanted to go off for a change
and rummage around amongst ogres
and have a good time, it could
go without uneasiness, knowing
that matters were in safe hands
behind it, and business going
to be continued at the old stand,
same as usual. The king was charmed
with the idea.
When I noticed that, it gave
me a valuable notion. I thought
I saw my way out of an old and
stubborn difficulty at last.
You see, the royalties of the
Pendragon stock were a long-lived
race and very fruitful. Whenever
a child was born to any of these
-- and it was pretty often --
there was wild joy in the nation's
mouth, and piteous sorrow in
the nation's heart. The joy was
questionable, but the grief was
honest. Because the event meant
another call for a Royal Grant.
Long was the list of these royalties,
and they were a heavy and steadily
increasing burden upon the treasury
and a menace to the crown. Yet
Arthur could not believe this
latter fact, and he would not
listen to any of my various projects
for substituting something in
the place of the royal grants.
If I could have persuaded him
to now and then provide a support
for one of these outlying scions
from his own pocket, I could
have made a grand to-do over
it, and it would have had a good
effect with the nation; but no,
he wouldn't hear of such a thing.
He had something like a religious
passion for royal grant; he seemed
to look upon it as a sort of
sacred swag, and one could not
irritate him in any way so quickly
and so surely as by an attack
upon that venerable institution.
If I ventured to cautiously hint
that there was not another respectable
family in England that would
humble itself to hold out the
hat -- however, that is as far
as I ever got; he always cut
me short there, and peremptorily,
too.
But I believed I saw my chance
at last. I would form this crack
regiment out of officers alone
-- not a single private. Half
of it should consist of nobles,
who should fill all the places
up to Major-General, and serve
gratis and pay their own expenses;
and they would be glad to do
this when they should learn that
the rest of the regiment would
consist exclusively of princes
of the blood. These princes of
the blood should range in rank
from Lieutenant-General up to
Field Marshal, and be gorgeously
salaried and equipped and fed
by the state. Moreover -- and
this was the master stroke --
it should be decreed that these
princely grandees should be always
addressed by a stunningly gaudy
and awe-compelling title (which
I would presently invent), and
they and they only in all England
should be so addressed. Finally,
all princes of the blood should
have free choice; join that regiment,
get that great title, and renounce
the royal grant, or stay out
and receive a grant. Neatest
touch of all: unborn but imminent
princes of the blood could be
BORN into the regiment, and start
fair, with good wages and a permanent
situation, upon due notice from
the parents.
All the boys would join, I
was sure of that; so, all existing
grants would be relinquished;
that the newly born would always
join was equally certain. Within
sixty days that quaint and bizarre
anomaly, the Royal Grant, would
cease to be a living fact, and
take its place among the curiosities
of the past.
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