“You noble buds of Britain,
That spring from honor’s tree,
Who love to hear of high designs,
Attend awhile to me.
And I’ll (in brief) discover what
Fame bids me take in hand--
To blaze
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“The order of the Garter,
Ere since third Edward reigned
Unto the realm of England hath
A matchless honor gained.
The world hath no society,
Like to this princely band,
To raise
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“The honor of his pedigree
Doth claim a high regard,
And many of his ancestors
For fame thought nothing hard.
And he, through noble qualities,
Which are exactly scanned,
Doth raise
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“Against the day appointed,
His lordship did prepare;
To publish his magnificence
No charges he did spare.
The like within man’s memory
Was never twice in hand
To raise
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“Upon that day it seemed
All Brittany did strive,
And did their best to honor him
With all they could contrive.
For all our high nobility
Joined in a mutual land
To blaze
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“The common eyes were dazzled
With wonder to behold
The lustre of apparel rich,
All silver, pearl, and gold,
Which on brave coursers mounted,
Did glisten through the Strand,
To blaze
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“But ere that I proceed
This progress to report,
I should have mentioned the feast
Made at Salisbury Court.
Almost five hundred dishes
Did on the table stand,
To raise
The praise
Of great Northumberland.”
_The Second Part, to the same tune._
“The mightiest prince or monarch
That in the world doth reign,
At such a sumptuous banquet might
Have dined without disdain,
Where sack, like conduit water,
Was free ever at command,
To blaze
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“The famous Fleet-street conduit,
Renowned so long ago,
Did not neglect to express what love
She to my lord did owe.
For like an old proud woman
The painted face doth stand
To blaze
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“A number of brave gallants,
Some knights and some esquires,
Attended at this triumph great,
Clad in complete attires.
The silver half-moon gloriously
Upon their sleeves doth stand,
To blaze
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“All these on stately horses,
That ill endured the bit,
Were mounted in magnific cost,
As to the time was fit.
Their feathers white and red did show,
Like to a martial band,
To blaze
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“The noble earls and viscounts,
And barons, rode in state:
This great and high solemnity
All did congratulate.
To honor brave Earl Percy
Each put a helping hand
To blaze
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“King Charles, our royal sovereign,
And his renownéd Mary,
With Britain’s hope, their progeny,
All lovingly did tarry
At noble Viscount Wimbleton’s,
I’ the fairest part o’ th’ Strand,
To blaze
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“To famous Windsor Castle,
With all his gallant train,
Earl _Pearcy_ went that afternoon
His honor to obtain.
And there he was installed
One of St. George’s band,
To blaze
The praise
Of great Northumberland.
“Long may he live in honor,
In plenty and in peace;
For him, and all his noble friends,
To pray I’ll never cease.
This ditty (which I now will end)
Was only ta’en in hand
To blaze
The praise
Of great Northumberland.”
This illustrative ballad bears the initials “M. P.” These, probably,
do not imply either a member of Parliament, or of the house of
Percy. Beneath the initials we have the legend, “Printed at London,
for Francis Coules, and are” (verses _subaudiuntur_) “to be sold at
his shop in the Old Bayley.” There are three woodcuts to illustrate
the text. The first represents the Earl on horseback; both peer
and charger are very heavily caparisoned, and the steed looks as
intelligent as the peer. In front of this stately, solid, and leisurely
pacing couple, is a mounted serving-man, armed with a stick, and riding
full gallop at nobody. The illustration to the second part represents
the Earl returning from Windsor in a carriage, which looks very much
like the Araba in the Turkish Exhibition. The new Knight wears his hat,
cloak, collar and star; his figure, broad-set to the doorway, bears
no distant resemblance to the knave of clubs, and his aristocratic
self-possession and serenity are remarkable, considering the bumping
he is getting, as implied by the wheels of his chariot being several
inches off the ground. The pace of the steeds, two and twohalves of
whom are visible, is not, however, very great. They are hardly out
of a walk. But perhaps the bareheaded coachman and the as bareheaded
groom have just pulled them up, to allow the running footmen to reach
the carriage. Two of these are seen near the rear of the vehicle,
running like the brace of mythological personages in Ovid, who ran the
celebrated match in which the apples figured so largely. The tardy
footmen have just come in sight of their lord, who does not allow his
serenity to be disturbed by chiding them. The Percy wears as stupid
an air as his servants, and the only sign of intelligence anywhere in
the group is to be found in the off-side wheeler, whose head is turned
back, with a sneering cast in the face, as if he were ridiculing the
idea of the whole show, and was possessed with the conviction that he
was drawing as foolish a beast as himself.
The Earl appears to have ridden eastward, in the direction pointed by
his own lion’s tale, before he drove down to Windsor. The show seems to
have interested all ranks between the Crown and the Conduit in Fleet
street. Where Viscount Wimbledon’s house was, “in the fairest part of
the Strand,” I can not conjecture, and as I can not find information on
this point in Mr. Peter Cunningham’s “Hand-Book of London,” I conclude
that the site is not known.
In connection with Charles I. and his Garter, I will here cite a
passage from the third volume of Mr. Macaulay’s “History of England,”
page 165. “Louvois hated Lauzun. Lauzun was a favorite at St. Germains.
He wore the Garter, a badge of honor which has very seldom been
conferred on aliens who were not sovereign princes. It was believed,
indeed, in the French court, that in order to distinguish him from the
other knights of the most illustrious of European orders, he had been
decorated with that very George which Charles I. had, on the scaffold,
put into the hands of Juxon.” Lauzun, I shall have to notice under the
head of foreign knights. I revert here to the George won by Charles and
given to Lauzun. It was a very extraordinary jewel, curiously cut in an
onyx, set about with twenty-one large table diamonds, in the fashion of
a garter. On the under side of the George was the portrait of Henrietta
Maria, “rarely well limned,” says Ashmole, “and set in a case of gold,
the lid neatly enamelled with goldsmith’s work, and surrounded with
another Garter, adorned with a like number of equal-sized diamonds, as
was the foresaid.” The onyx George of Charles I. was in the possession
of the late Duke of Wellington, and is the property of the present Duke.
There is something quite as curious touching the history of the
Garter worn by Charles I., as what Mr. Macaulay tells concerning the
George. The diamonds upon it, forming the motto, were upward of four
hundred in number. On the day of the execution, this valuable ornament
fell into the hands of one of Cromwell’s captains of cavalry, named
Pearson. After one exchange of hands, it was sold to John Ireton,
sometime Lord-Mayor of London, for two hundred and five pounds. At the
Restoration, a commission was appointed to look after the scattered
royal property generally; and the commissioners not only recovered
some pictures belonging to Charles, from Mrs. Cromwell, who had placed
them in charge of a tradesman in Thames street, but they discovered
that Ireton held the Garter, and they summoned him to deliver it up
accordingly. It has been said that the commissioners offered him the
value of the jewel if he would surrender it. This is not the case. The
report had been founded on a misapprehension of terms. Ireton did not
deny that he possessed the Garter by purchase, whereupon “composition
was offered him, according to the direction of the Commission, as in
all other like cases where anything could not be had in kind.” That is,
he was ordered to surrender the jewel, or if this had been destroyed,
its value, or some compensation in lieu thereof. Ireton refused the
terms altogether. The King, Charles II., thereupon sued him in the
Court of King’s Bench, where the royal plaintiff obtained a verdict for
two hundred and five pounds, and ten pounds costs of suit.
In February, 1652, the Parliament abolished all titles and honors
conferred by Charles I. since the 4th of January, two years previously.
This was done on the ground that the late King had conferred such
titles and honors, in order to promote his wicked and treacherous
designs against the parliament and people of England. A fine of one
hundred pounds was decreed against every offender, whenever he employed
the abolished title, with the exception of a knight, who was let off
at the cheaper rate of forty pounds. Any one convicted of addressing
a person by any of the titles thus done away with, was liable to a
fine of ten shillings. The Parliament treated with silent contempt the
titles and orders of knighthood conferred by Charles I. As monarchy
was defunct, these adjuncts of monarchy were considered as defunct
also. The Protector did not create a single Knight of the Garter, nor
of the Bath. “_These_ orders,” says Nicolas, “were never formally
abolished, but they were probably considered so inseparably united to
the person, name, and office of a king, as to render it impossible
for any other authority to create them.” Cromwell, however, made one
peer, Howard, Viscount Howard of Morpeth, ten baronets and knights,
and conferred certain degrees of precedency. It was seldom that he
named an unworthy person, considering the latter in the Protector’s own
point of view, but the Restoration was no sooner an accomplished fact,
when to ridicule one of Oliver’s knights was a matter of course with
the hilarious dramatic poets. On this subject something will be found
under the head of “Stage Knights.” Meanwhile, although there is nothing
to record touching Knights of the Garter, under the Commonwealth,
we may notice an incident showing that Garter King-at-arms was not
altogether idle. This incident will be sufficiently explained by the
following extract from the third volume of Mr. Macaulay’s “History of
England.” The author is speaking of the regicide Ludlow, who, since the
Restoration, had been living in exile at Geneva. “The Revolution opened
a new prospect to him. The right of the people to resist oppression, a
right which, during many years, no man could assert without exposing
himself to ecclesiastical anathemas and to civil penalties, had
been solemnly recognised by the Estates of the realm, and had been
proclaimed by Garter King-at-arms, on the very spot where the memorable
scaffold had been set up.”
Charles II. did not wait for the Restoration in order to make or unmake
knights. He did not indeed hold chapters, but at St. Germains, in
Jersey, and other localities, he unknighted knights who had forgotten
their allegiance in the “late _horrid_ rebellion,” as he emphatically
calls the Parliamentary and Cromwellian periods, and authorized other
individuals to wear the insignia, while he exhorted them to wait
patiently and hopefully for their installations at Windsor. At St.
Germains, he gave the Garter to his favorite Buckingham; and from
Jersey he sent it to two far better men--Montrose, and Stanley, Earl of
Derby. The worst enemies of these men could not deny their chivalrous
qualities. Montrose on the scaffold, when they hung (in derision) from
his neck the book in which were recorded his many brave deeds, very
aptly said that he wore the record of his courage with as much pride as
he ever wore the Garter. Stanley’s chivalry was never more remarkable
than in the skirmish previous to Worcester, when in the hot affray, he
received seven shots in his breast-plate, thirteen cuts on his beaver,
five or six wounds on his arms and shoulders, and had two horses
killed under him. When he was about to die, he returned the Garter,
by the hands of a faithful servant, to the king, “in all humility and
gratitude,” as he remarked, “spotless and free from any stain, as he
received it, according to the honorable example of my ancestors.”
Charles made knights of the Garter of General Monk and Admiral
Montague. The chapter for election was held in the Abbey of St.
Augustine’s at Canterbury. It was the first convenient place which
the king could find for such a purpose after landing. “They were the
only two,” says Pepys, “for many years who had the Garter given them
before they had honor of earldom, or the like, excepting only the Duke
of Buckingham, who was only Sir George Villiers when he was made a
knight of the Garter.” The honor was offered to Clarendon, but declined
as above his deserts, and likely to create him enemies. James, Duke
of York, however, angrily attributed Clarendon’s objection to being
elected to the Garter to the fact that James himself had asked it for
him, and that the Chancellor was foolishly unwilling to accept any
honor that was to be gained by the Duke’s mediation.
Before proceeding to the next reign, let me remark that the George and
Garter of Charles II. had as many adventures or misadventures as those
of his father. In the fight at Worcester his collar and garter became
the booty of Cromwell, who despatched a messenger with them to the
Parliament, as a sign and trophy of victory. The king’s lesser George,
set with diamonds, was preserved by Colonel Blague. It passed through
several hands with much risk. It at length fell again into the hands of
the Colonel when he was a prisoner in the Tower. Blague, “considering
it had already passed so many dangers, was persuaded it could yet
secure one hazardous attempt of his own.” The enthusiastic royalist
looked upon it as a talisman that would rescue him from captivity.
Right or wrong in his sentiment, the result was favorable. He succeeded
in making his escape, and had the gratification of restoring the George
to his sovereign.
The short reign of James II. offers nothing worthy of the notice of
the general reader with respect to this decoration; and the same
may be said of the longer reign of William III. The little interest
in the history of the order under Queen Anne, is in connection with
her foreign nominations, of which due notice will be found in the
succeeding section. Small, too, is the interest connected with these
matters in the reign of George I., saving, indeed, that under _him_ we
find the last instance of the degradation of a knight of the garter,
in the person of James, Duke of Ormund, who had been attainted of
high treason. His degradation took place on the 12th July, 1716. The
elections were numerous during this reign. The only one that seems to
demand particular notice is that of Sir Robert Walpole, First Lord of
the Treasury. He gave up the Bath on receiving the Garter in 1726,
and he was the only commoner who had received the distinction since
Sir George Monk and Sir Edward Montague were created, sixty-six years
previously.
The first circumstance worthy of record under George II. is, that
the color of the garter and ribbon was changed from light blue to
dark, or “Garter-blue,” as it is called. This was done in order to
distinguish the companions made by Brunswick from those assumed to
be fraudulently created by the Pretender Stuart. Another change was
effected, but much less felicitously. What with religious, social, and
political revolution, it was found that the knights were swearing to
statutes which they could not observe. Their consciences were disturbed
thereat--at least they said so; but their sovereign set them at ease
by enacting that in future all knights should promise to break no
statutes, except on dispensation from the sovereign! This left the
matter exactly where it had been previously.
The first circumstance worthy of attention in the reign of George III.,
was that of the election of Earl Gower, president of the council, in
1771. The sharp eye of Junius discovered that the election was a farce,
for in place of the sovereign and at least six knights being present,
as the statutes required, there were only four knights present, the
Dukes of Gloucester, Newcastle, Northumberland, and the Earl of
Hertford. The first duke too was there against his will. He had, says
Junius, “entreated, begged, and implored,” to be excused from attending
that chapter--but all in vain. The new knight seems to have been
illegally elected, and as illegally installed. The only disagreeable
result was to the poor knights of Windsor. People interested in the
subject had made remarks, and while the illegal election of the
president of the council was most properly put before the King,
representation was made to him that the poor knights had been wickedly
contravening their statutes, for a very long period. They had for years
been permitted to reside with their families wherever they chose to fix
their residence. This was pronounced irregular, and George III., so lax
with regard to Lord Gower, was very strict with respect to these poor
knights. They were all commanded to reside in their apartments attached
to Windsor Castle, and there keep up the poor dignity of their noble
order, by going to church twice every day in full uniform. There were
some of them at that period who would as soon have gone out twice a day
to meet the dragon.
The order of the Garter was certainly ill-used by this sovereign. In
order to admit all his sons, he abolished the statute of Edward (who
had as many sons as George had when he made the absurd innovation,
but who did not care to make knights of them _because_ they were his
sons), confining the number of companions to twenty-five. Henceforward,
the sovereign’s sons were to reckon only as over and above that number.
As if this was not sufficiently absurd, the king subsequently decreed
eligibility of election to an indefinite number of persons, provided
only that they could trace their descent from King George II.!
No Companion so well deserved the honor conferred upon him as he who
was the most illustrious of the English knights created during the
sway of the successor of George III., as Regent; namely, the late Duke
of Wellington. Mr. Macaulay, when detailing the services and honors
conferred on Schomberg, has a passage in which he brings the names
of these two warriors, dukes, and knights of the Garter, together.
“The House of Commons had, with general approbation, compensated the
losses of Schomberg, and rewarded his services by a grant of a hundred
thousand pounds. Before he set out for Ireland, he requested permission
to express his gratitude for this magnificent present. A chair was set
for him within the bar. He took his seat there with the mace at his
right hand, rose, and in a few graceful words returned his thanks and
took his leave. The Speaker replied that the Commons could never forget
the obligation under which they already lay to his Grace, that they saw
him with pleasure at the head of an English army, that they felt entire
confidence in his zeal and ability, and that at whatever distance he
might be he would always be, in a peculiar manner, an object of their
care. The precedent set on this interesting occasion was followed with
the utmost minuteness, a hundred and twenty-five years later, on an
occasion more interesting still. Exactly on the same spot, on which, in
July, 1689, Schomberg had acknowledged the liberality of the nation,
a chair was set in July, 1814, for a still more illustrious warrior,
who came to return thanks for a still more splendid mark of public
gratitude.”
There is nothing calling for particular notice in the history of the
Order since the election of the last-named knight. Not one on whose
shoulders has been placed “the robe of heavenly color,” earned so
hardly and so well the honor of companionship. This honor, however,
costs every knight who submits to the demand, not less than one hundred
and eight pounds sterling, in fees. It is, in itself, a heavy fine
inflicted on those who render extraordinary service to the country, and
to whom are presented the order of the Garter, and an order from the
Garter King-at-arms to pay something more than a hundred guineas in
return. The fine, however, is generally paid with alacrity; for, though
the non-payment does not unmake a knight, it has the effect of keeping
his name from the register.
I have already observed that Mr. Macaulay, in his recently-published
History, has asserted that very few foreigners, except they were
sovereign princes, were ever admitted into the companionship of the
Garter. Let us, then, look over the roll of illustrious aliens, and see
how far this assertion is correct.
FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER.
There is some error in Mr. Macaulay’s statement, which, as a matter of
history, may be worth correcting. So far from there having been few
aliens, except sovereign princes, admitted into the order, the fact,
save in recent times, is exactly the reverse. The order contemplated
the admission of foreigners, from the very day of its foundation. On
that day, three foreigners were admitted, none of whom was a sovereign
prince. Not one of the foreign sovereigns with whom Edward was in
alliance, nor any of the royal relatives of the Queen, were among the
original companions. The aliens, who were not sovereign princes, were
the Captal de Buch, a distinguished Gascon nobleman, and two bannerets
or knights, who with the other original companions had served in the
expeditions sent by Edward against France.