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

was “king of the Romans,” not “king of Rome,” and, after being crowned by the pope, was styled “emperor of the Romans,” and from 962 “kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire.” After the reign of Frederick II., the second consecration was dispensed with.

King of Ships, Carausius, who assumed the purple in A.D. 287, and, seizing on Britain, defeated the emperor Maximian Herculius in several naval engagements (250, 287-293).

King of Yvetot [Ev-to], a king of name only; a mockery king; one who assumes mighty honours without the wherewithal to support them. Yvetot, near Rouen, was a seigneurie, on the possessor of which Clotaire I. conferred the title of king in 534, and the title continued till the fourteenth century.

Il était un roi d’Yvetot,
Peu connu dans l’histoire;
Se levant tard, se couchant tôt,
Dormant fort bien sans gloire.
   —Béranger.

A king there was “roi d’Yvetot” clept,
But little known in story,
Went soon to bed, till daylight slept,
And soundly, without glory.
   —E. C. B.

King of the Beggars, Bampfylde Moore Carew (1693–1770). He succeeded Clause Patch, who died 1730, and was therefore king of the beggars for forty years (1730–1770).

King of the World, the Roman emperor. This is the title generally accorded to him in the old Celtic romances.

King Sat on the Rocky Brow (A). The reference is to Xerxes viewing the battle of Salamis from one of the declivities of mount Ægaleos.

A king sat on the rocky brow
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below.
   —Byron: Don Juan, iii. (“The Isles of Greece,” 1820).

(“Ships by thousands” is a gross exaggeration. The original fleet was only 1200 sail, and 400 were wrecked off the coast of Sêpias before the sea-fight of Salamis began, thus reducing the number to 800 at most.)

King should Die Standing (A). Vespasian said so, and Louis XVIII. of France repeated the same conceit. Both died standing.

King’s Cave (The), opposite to Campbeltown (Argyllshire); so called because king Robert Bruce with his retinue lodged in it.—Statistical Account of Scotland, v. 167.

King’s Chair, the hands of two persons so crossed as to form a seat. On Candlemas Day (February 2) it was at one time customary for Scotch children to carry offerings to their schoolmaster, and the boy and girl who brought the richest gift were elected king and queen for the nonce. When school was dismissed, each of these two children was carried in a king’s chair, by way of triumph.

In the early part of the nineteenth century it was a common nursery game in England, and the fun was to break hands and let the rider down. I have played it many and many times between 1815 and 1818. I learn, too, that it was a common outdoor children’s game in East Anglia as late as 1860.