Obs. In 4 taylard. [f. TAIL sb.1 + -ARD.] One with a tail.
An opprobrious epithet founded on a legend told first of St. Augustine at Dorchester (or Rochester), and later of Thomas a Becket in Kent, in which the people of these places were said to be cursed with tails for indignities done by attaching a tail to these holy men. See Layamon 29535–86, Fuller Ch. Hist. II. ii. § 22, Lambarde Kent 400, Stanley Hist. Mem. Cant. (1872) I. 53, and references in the last. On the continent, tails used to be ascribed to Englishmen generally. Cf. TAILED1 1 and LONG-TAIL 2 a.
13[?]. Coer de L., 724. The kyng callid Rychard be name, And clepyd hym taylard, and sayde hymn schame. Ibid., 1996. Ibid., 2112. The emperour … cried, as uncourteys: Out, taylards, of my paleys! Now go and say your tayled king That I owe him no thing.
