Chapter Maney to Mansfield of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

(The object of this novel, like that of La Dame aux Camélias, by Dumas fils (1848), is to show how true- hearted, how self-sacrificing, how attractive, a file de joie may be.)

Manrico, the supposed son of Azucena the gipsy, but in reality the son of Garzia (brother of the conte di Luna). Leonora is in love with him. (For the rest, see Leonora, p. 607.)—Verdi: Il Trovatore (an opera, 1853).

Man’s, a fashionable coffee-house in the reign of Charles II.

Mans (The count of), Roland, nephew of Charlemagne. He is also called the “knight of Blaives.”

Mansel (Sir Edward), lieutenant of the Tower of London.

Lady Mansel, wife of sir Edward.—Sir W. Scott: Fortunes of Nigel (time, James I.).

Mansfield (The Miller of), a humorous, good-natured countryman, who offered Henry VIII. hospitality when he had lost himself in a hunting expedition. The miller gave the king half a bed with his son Richard. Next morning, the courtiers were brought to the cottage by under-keepers, and Henry, in merry pin, knighted his host, who thus became sir John Cockle. He then made him “overseer of Sherwood Forest,” with a salary of 1000 marks a year.—Dodsley: The King and the Miller of Mansfield (1737).

In the ballad called The King and the Miller of Mansfield, the king is Henry II., and there are several other points of difference between the ballad and the play. In the play, Cockle hears a gun fired, and goes out to look for poachers, when he lays hold of the king, but, being satisfied that he is no poacher, he takes him home. In the ballad, the king outrides his lords, gets lost, and, meeting the miller, asks of him a night’s lodging. When the miller feels satisfied with the face and bearing of the stranger, he entertains him right hospitably. He gives him for supper a venison pasty, but tells him on no account to tell the king “that they made free with his deer.” Another point of difference is this: In the play, the courtiers are seized by the under-keepers, and brought to Cockle’s house; but in the ballad they track the king and appear before him next morning. In the play, the king settles on sir John Cockle 1000 marks; in the ballad, £300 a year.—Percy: Reliques, III. ii. 20.

(As Dodsley introduced the “firing of a gun,” he was obliged to bring down his date to more modern times, and none of the Henrys between Henry II. and Henry VIII. would be the least likely to indulge in such a prank.)