122 KNIGHTHOOD
and is even still frequently conceded to the second and fourth, although the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh appear to be as contentedly as they are unquestionably recent.
Order of the Garter.
It is, however, certain that the "most noble" Order of the Garter at least was instituted in the middle of the 14th century, when, to use Hallam s words, the court of England "was the sun as it were of that system which embraced the valour and nobility of the Christian world," when "chivalry was in its zenith, and in all the virtues which adorned the knightly character none were so conspicuous as Edward III. and the Black Prince." But in what particular year this event occurred is and has been the subject of much difference of opinion. All the original records of the order until after 1416 have perished, and consequently the question depends for its settlement not on direct testimony but on inference from circumstances. The dates which have been selected vary from 1344 to 1351, and it is a matter of some historical interest and importance to determine so far as it is practi cable which of them is probably accurate, since Dr Stubbs cites the fact of " Edward III. celebrating his great feast on the institution of the Order of the Garter in the midst of the Black Death" as a "typical illustration" of the heartlessness and want of sympathy between classes which he holds to have been characteristic of the age.[1] The Black Death made its appearance on the coast early in August 1348, reached the capital in the following Novem ber, and spreading over the country raged until the end of September 1349. Hence Dr Stubbs apparently agrees with Ashmole (who based his opinion on the preamble to the two earliest but evidently not contemporary copies of the statutes) in referring the institution of the order and the accompanying feast to St George's Day in the April of the second of these two years.[2] Mr Longman thinks that the order was "finally established" in 1347,[3] Mr Beltz contends that it was founded in 1344, as Froissart, who wrote in the reign of Edward III. and Richard II., affirms, while Sir Harris Nicolas maintains that, although it is not impossible that Edward III. may have determined to found an order of knighthood in 1344, when he invited knights of all countries to jousts at Windsor and revived the feast of the Round Table, of which Froissart speaks, yet "the details of the Order of the Garter were not settled (even if the institution itself was contemplated), the companions appointed, nor the name or ensigns established until the latter part of 1347 or early in 1348."[4] And, without going fully into the evidence, which may be examined at length in Nicolas and Beltz, it is indisputable that in the wardrobe account from September 1347 to January 1349, the 21st and 23d Edward III., the issue of certain habits with garters and the motto embroidered on them is marked for St George's Day, that similar vestments for the king and others on occasions not connected with the order are re corded as having been delivered in 1347 at the Christmas games at Guildford and the tournaments at Bury, Windsor, Lichfield, and Eltham, that the letters patent relating to the preparation of the royal chapel of Windsor are dated in August 1348, and that in the treasury accounts of the Prince of Wales there is an entry in November 1348 of the gift by him of "twenty-four garters to the knights of the Society of the Garter."[5] But that the order, although from this manifestly already fully constituted in the
1 Const. Hist., vol. ii. p. 624.
2 Ashmole, Order of the Garter, p. 187; Anstis, Order of the Garter, vol. i. p. 92. Selden, in the first edition of Titles of Honor, gives 1347, and in the last edition 1344. Barnes in his Life of Edward III., and Beltz in his Memorials, p. xxx., collect the various older authorities.
3 Life of Edward III., vol. i. p. 298.
4 Orders of Knighthood, vol. i. p. lxxi. and pp. 9-16.
5 Beltz, Memorials, p. 385.
autumn of 1348, was not in existence before the summer of 1346 Sir Harris Nicolas holds on the ground that nobody who was not a knight could under its statutes have been admitted to it, and that neither the Prince of Wales nor several others of the original companions were knighted until the middle of that year. Mr Beltz, following a sug gestion of Anstis, had endeavoured to overcome this difficulty by assuming that the Black Prince had been knighted in his infancy, and that he was made a banneret at the age of fifteen. But, although it was not unusual for the sons of sovereigns and great feudatories to be knighted when they were children, and even at their bap tism, it is beyond question, as Sir Harris Nicolas points out, that in England only commoners could be formally created bannerets. All knights of or above the rank of a baron were at once entitled to bear their banners in the field. And that the Prince of Wales was knighted on the landing of Edward III. s expedition against France at La Hogue in July 1346 there can be no doubt. It seems pretty clear, however, that the Order of the Garter was in stituted and the great feast celebrated, not in the midst of the Black Death, but at any rate some months before its ravages commenced. Regarding the occasion there has been almost as much controversy as regarding the date of its foundation. The "vulgar and more general story," as Ashmole calls it, is that of the countess of Salisbury's garter. But commentators are not at one as to which countess of Salisbury was the heroine of the adventure, whether she was Katherine Montacute or Joan the Fair Maid of Kent, while Heylyn rejects the legend as "a vain and idle romance derogatory both to the founder and the order, first published by Polydor Vergil, a stranger to the affairs of England, and by him taken upon no better ground than fama vulgi, the tradition of the common people, too trifling a foundation for so great a building," and Anstis says that "it is now no more credited than the absurd, ridiculous relation of Micheli Marquez that this order, termed from the Greek language Periscelidis Ordo, was erected to the memory of one Periscelide, a true fairy queen, or the whimsical dream of Mr Joshua Barnes in his far-fetched derivation of it from the Cabiri among the Samothracians."[6] Ashmole, however, while denying that any such accident became the principal cause of creating the order, will not altogether repudiate the alle gation that "the king may have picked up a garter at some solemn ball or festivity," – the queen's garter, as some have said, – while she and not he made use of the memorable words "Honi soit qui mal y pense."[7] Another legend is that contained in the preface to the Register or Black Book of the order, compiled in the reign of Henry VIII., by what authority supported is unknown, that Richard I., while his forces were employed against Cyprus and Acre, had been inspired through the instrumentality of St George with renewed courage and the means of animating his fatigued soldiers by the device of tying about the legs of a chosen number of knights a leathern thong or garter, to the end that being thereby reminded of the honour of their enterprise they might be encouraged to redoubled efforts for victory. This was supposed to have been in the mind of Edward III. when he fixed on the garter as the emblem of the order, and it was stated so to have been by Taylor, master of the rolls, in his address to Francis I. of France on his investiture in 1527.[8] According to Ashmole the true account of the matter is that, "King Edward having given forth his own garter as the signal for a battle which sped fortunately (which with Du Chesne we conceive to be that of Cressy, fought almost three years after the setting
6 Heylyn, Cosmographie and History of the Whole World, book i. p. 286; Anstis, Order of the Garter, vol. i. p. 62.
7 Order of the Garter, p. 182.
8 Beltz, Memorials, p. xlvi.
