Chapter King and the Beggar to King's Chair of K by Brewer's Readers Handbook

King and the Beggar to King's Chair

King and the Beggar. It is said that king Copethua or Cophetua of Africa fell in love with a beggar-girl, and married her. The girl’s name was Penelophon; called by Shakespeare Zenelophon (Love’s Labour’s Lost, act iv. sc. 1, 1594).

King and the Cobbler. The interview between Henry VIII. and a merry London cobbler is the subject of one of the many popular tales in which Bluff Hal is represented as visiting a humble subject in disguise.

King and the Locusts. A king made a proclamation that, if any man would tell him a story which should last for ever, he would make him his heir and son-in-law; but if any one undertook to do so and failed, he should lose his head. After many failures, came one, and said, “A certain king seized all the corn of his kingdom, and stored it in a huge granary; but a swarm of locusts came, and a small cranny was descried, through which one locust could contrive to creep. So one locust went in, and carried off one grain of corn; and then another locust went in, and carried off another grain of corn; and then another locust went in,” etc.; and so the man went on, day after day, and week after week, “and so another locust went in, and carried off another grain of corn.” A month passed; a year passed. In six months more, the king said, “How much longer will the locusts be?” “Oh, your majesty,” said the story-teller, “they have cleared at present only a cubit, and there are many thousand cubits in the granary.” “Man, man!” cried the king; “you will drive me mad. Take my daughter, take my kingdom, take everything I have; only let me hear no more of these intolerable locusts!”—Letters from an Officer in India (edited by the Rev. S.A. Pears).

King and the Miller of Mansfield (The). (See Miller.)

King of Bark, Christopher III. of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. So called because in a time of scarcity, he had the bark of birchwood mixed with meal for food (died 1448).

King of Bath, Beau Nash, who was for fifty-six years master of the ceremonies of the bath-rooms in that city, and conducted the balls with great splendour and judgment (1674–1761).

King of England. This title was first assumed by Egbert in 828.

King of Exeter’Change, Thomas Clark, friend of the famous Abraham Newland (1737–1817).

King of France. This title was first assumed by Louis VII. (1171). It was changed into “king of the French” by the National Assembly in 1789. Louis XVIII. resumed the title “king of France” in 1814; and Louis Philippe again resumed the more republican title, “king of the French” (1830).

King of France. Edward III. of England assumed the title in 1337; but in 1801 it was relinquished by proclamation (time, George III.).

King of Ireland. This title was first assumed by Henry VIII. in 1542. The title previously assumed by the kings of England was “lord of Ireland.” In Rymer’s Fædera (vol. i.) a deed of gift is ascribed (under Henry I.) to “Henry lord of Ireland;” but no English king was lord of Ireland before the reign of Henry II.

King of Painters, a title assumed by Parrhasios. Plutarch says he wore a purple robe and a golden crown (fl. B.C. 400).

King of Preachers, Louis Bourdaloue, a French clergyman (1632–1704).

King of Rome, a title conferred by Napoleon I. on his son the very day he was born; but he was generally called the duke of Reichstadt.

It is thought that this title was given in imitation of Charlemagne. If so, it was a blunder; Charlemagne was never “king of Rome,” but he was “patrician of Rome.” In the German empire, the emperor-elect