of this institution, a promotion of knights
followed every success, besides the innumerable cases where the same
honour rewarded individual bravery.[787] It may here be mentioned that
an honorary distinction was made between knights-bannerets and
bachelors.[788] The former were the richest and best accompanied. No man
could properly be a banneret unless he possessed a certain estate, and
could bring a certain number of lances into the field.[789] His
distinguishing mark was the square banner, carried by a squire at the
point of his lance; while the knight-bachelor had only the coronet or
pointed pendant. When a banneret was created, the general cut off this
pendant to render the banner square.[790] But this distinction, however
it elevated the banneret, gave him no claim to military command, except
over his own dependents or men at arms. Chandos was still a
knight-bachelor when he led part of the prince of Wales's army into
Spain. He first raised his banner at the battle of Navarette; and the
narration that Froissart gives of the ceremony will illustrate the
manners of chivalry and the character of that admirable hero, the
conqueror of Du Guesclin and pride of English chivalry, whose fame with
posterity has been a little overshadowed by his master's laurels.[791]
What seems more extraordinary is, that mere squires had frequently the
command over knights. Proofs of this are almost continual in Froissart.
But the vast estimation in which men held the dignity of knighthood led
them sometimes to defer it for great part of their lives, in hope of
signalizing their investiture by some eminent exploit.

[Sidenote: Decline of chivalry.]

These appear to have been the chief means of nourishing the principles
of chivalry among the nobility of Europe. But notwithstanding all
encouragement, it underwent the usual destiny of human institutions. St.
Palaye, to whom we are indebted for so vivid a picture of ancient
manners, ascribes the decline of chivalry in France to the profusion
with which the order was lavished under Charles VI., to the
establishment of the companies of ordonnance by Charles VII., and to the
extension of knightly honours to lawyers, and other men of civil
occupation, by Francis I.[792] But the real principle of decay was
something different from these three subordinate circumstances, unless
so far as it may bear some relation to the second. It was the invention
of gunpowder that eventually overthrew chivalry. Fr