<!doctype html public «-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en»> http-equiv=content-type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859–1"> This study brings together two subjects that are enjoying renewed interest among researchers of the early modern era: aristocracy and monarchy. It examines the common idealistic “chivalric” heroic foundations of king and nobleman, as scholars of history have always preferred to view the “knight” among emperors and kings, beset by conflicted orientations to the past and to modernization, as the “last knight.”