Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also carpet-captain, carpet-champion, carpet lover, carpet-monger, carpet squire, carpet warrior) a man whose ‘knightly exploits’ concentrate on the boudoir rather than the battlefield.

1562		W. Bullein Bk of Sicke Men and Medicenes fol. 73: When the people did see him daunce so lively, like a lubber in a nette, Lord how thei laughed this Carpet Squire to skorne.
1567		A. Golding Ovid XII 673: [Achilles is] by that coward carpet knyght beereeved of his lyfe.
1576		U. Fulwell Art of Flattery 8th dialogue 39: Then came in Sir Cupid like a carpet knight.
1584		Greene Mamillia II 94: He must needes be a Carpet Knight: for they thinke it is as hard to lyue without loue as without meat.
1593		Nashe Four Letters Confuted in Works II (1883–4) 219: Ouid [...] shrouded a picked effeminate Carpet Knight vnder the fictionate person of Hermophroditus.
1599		Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing V ii: Leander the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of pandars, and a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mongers.
1600		E. Fairfax (trans.) Tasso XVI 32: From all the world, buried in sloth and shame, A carpet champion for a wanton dame.
1611		R. Cotgrave Dict. of Fr. and Eng. Tongues n.p.: Dameret, An effeminate fondling, or fond carpet knight; one that spends his whole time in entertaining or courting women.
1625		Massinger Unnatural Combat III iii: Your carpet Knights, That never charg’d beyond a mistresse lips.
1630		J. Taylor Taylors Motto in Works (1869) II 49: To drinke a health to some vnworthy Lord: / Some fusty Madam, or some carpet Knight.
1640		‘Mary Tattle-well’ Womens sharpe revenge 97: Verily he was a dainty perfum’d carpet Captaine, a powdred Potentate, a painted periwig [etc].
1656		in Ebsworth Choyce Drollery (1876) 71: Then into England straight he came / As fast as he was able, / Where he made many a Carpet Knight, / Though none of the Round Table.
1664		C. Cotton Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk I 34: And I Æneas fam’d in Fight; / But much more for a Carpet-Knight.
1675		C. Cotton Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 180: It will be requisite, / If thou wilt turn a Carpet-Knight.
1699		W. Winstanley Famous history of Sir Billy of Billerecay 199: I shall proclaim thee the most Cowardly Carpet Knight that ever wore Sword, only valiant in Voice, but at the fight of an Enemy ready to run away from thy self.
1700		J. Newton catalogue n.p.: Pendragon: or, The Carpet Knight's Kalendar. A Poem.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy IV 276: Brave Carpet Knights in Cupid’s Fights, their milk-white Rapiers drew.
1822		D. Carey Life in Paris 217: A carpet knight ‘Who capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber’.
1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 181: Some spoony lords, some carpet warriors, some tenth transmitters of a foolish face.
1859		Bell’s Life in Tasmania 12 July 4/4: [T]he housohold troops ‘who live at home at ease’ may be looked upon as ‘carpet knights’.
1865		G.A. Sala My Diary in America II 207: Very jovial citizen soldiers they are – not mere carpet knights, but distinguished as having been among the earliest to volunteer in this monstrous war.
1874		Manchester Courier 2 June 5/6: He was severely wounded in the Crimea, and has often proved himsel to be no carpet knight.
1888		Leeds Times 4 Feb. 6/4: To be a Carpet-Warrior nowadays needs a considerable deal of money, blood, or interest.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 15: Carpet Knight, a lady’s man.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 5: Adonis, m. A lady’s man; ‘a carpet-knight’; ‘a tame cat’.
1907		W.M. Raine Bucky O’Connor (1910) 180: These follies are but for a carpet lover.
1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 17: cold footer — a carpet knight.

2. a man who frequents drawing rooms rather than places of work.

1847		Fraser’s Mag. Jan. 79/2: The symptoms of genius breed in our minds just so many suspicions, till genius itself must [...] pass upwards from the ranks to the command ; or it will be derided as a mere carpet warrior — a gay popinjay of scarlet and feathers.
1860		Carlisle Jrnl 1 June 5/2: [He] expressed [the] disgust with which the army regarded the promotion of this carpet-warrior to one of the posts professedly reserved for old and distinguished soldiers.
1867		W.H. Smyth Sailor’s Word-Bk (1991) 165: Carpet-Knight. A man who obtains knighthood on a pretence for services in which he never participated.
1871		C. Money Knocking About in N.Z. 127: If he had not been restrained and hampered by the ‘penny wise and pound foolish’ system which some miserable carpet-knights have fostered and encouraged, the news of the fatal affair [...] would never have been told.
1892		Punch 15 Oct. 178: ‘SUR LE TAPIS.’ — If the new Carpet Knight, Sir BLONDEL MAPLE [...] be exceptionally successful on the Turf, isn’t he just the man to ‘make his “pile” and cut it’?
1895		Truth (Sydney) 21 Apr. 1/3: The accusations of untruthfulness hurled at this paper by [...] that veritable carpet-knight Sir Arthur Renwick, recoil on their aggressive heads .