liegeman

If Prince Philip will be remembered as Queen Elizabeth’s “liegeman of life and limb,” Mr. Emhoff may go down in history as Vice President Harris’s cheerleader in chief.

At the coronation of Elizabeth at Westminster Abbey in 1953, the duke knelt before the sitting queen and pledged to be her “liegeman,” or faithful servant, for life.

At her coronation at Westminster Abbey the next year, Prince Philip knelt before the sitting queen and pledged to be her “liegeman,” or faithful servant, for life.

What lord should do less when his liegeman breaks an oath than build a fleet, kill his enemy and change the course of British history?

The English king’s beasts were leopards in blazon, in ballad and chronicle, and in the mouths of liegeman and enemy.