You know Canute's old rhyme says, "Row to
the shore, knights," as if they were boatmen, and not gentlemen.'
'I do not think it could have been beneath the dignity of a knight to
row Canute,' said Anne, 'considering that eight kings rowed Edgar the
Peaceable.'
'Other things prove that Knight meant a servant, in Saxon,' said
Elizabeth.
'I know it does sometimes, as in German now,' said Anne; 'but the
question is, when it acquired a meaning equivalent in dignity to the
French Chevalier.'
'Though it properly means anything but a horseman,' said Elizabeth;
'we ought to have a word answering to the German Ritter.'
'Yes, our language was spoilt by being mixed with French before it
had come to its perfection,' said Anne; 'but still you have not
proved that King Alfred was not a knight in the highest sense of the
word, a preux chevalier.'
'I never heard of Alfred on horseback, nor did I ever know him called
Sir Alfred of Wessex.'
'Sir is French, and short for seigneur or senior,' said Anne;
'besides, I suppose, you never heard Coeur-de-Lion called Sir Richard
Plantagenet.
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