knights of the Garter, were the Gascon soldier Du Preissne; Soldan
de la Tour, Lord of much land in Xaintonge; the Dutch Count William
of Ostervant, who made a favor of accepting the honorable badge; the
Duke of Bavaria (not yet Emperor), and Albert, Duke of Holland, who
was hardly a sovereign prince, but who, nevertheless, may be accounted
as such, seeing that, in a small way indeed, more like a baron than a
monarch, he exercised some sovereign rights. The Duke of Britanny may,
with more justice, be included in the list of sovereign dukes who were
members of the order. Under Henry IV., neither alien noble nor foreign
prince appears to have been elected, but under his successor, fifth
of the name, Eric X., King of Denmark, and John I., King of Portugal,
were created companions. They were the first kings regnant admitted to
the order. Some doubt exists as to the date of their admission, but
none as to their having been knights’ companions. Dabrichecourt is
the name of a gentleman lucky enough to have been also elected during
this reign, but I do not know if he were of foreign birth or foreign
only by descent. The number of the fraternity became complete in this
reign, by the election of the Emperor Sigismund. Under Henry V., the
foreign sovereign princes, members of the order, were unquestionably
more numerous than the mere alien gentlemen; but reckoning from the
foundation, there had been a greater number of foreign knights not
of sovereign quality than of those who were. The sovereign princes
did not seem to care so much for the honor as private gentlemen in
foreign lands. Thus the German, Sir Hartook von Clux, accepted the
honor with alacrity, but the King of Denmark allowed five years to
pass before he intimated that he cheerfully or resignedly tendered
his acceptance. At the first anniversary festival of the Order, held
under Henry VI., as many robes of the order were made for alien knights
not sovereign princes, as for gartered monarchs of foreign birth. The
foreign princes had so little appreciated the honor of election, that
when the Sovereign Duke of Burgundy was proposed, under Henry VI., the
knights would not go to election until that potentate had declared
whether he would accept the honor. His potentiality declared very
distinctly that he would not; and he is the first sovereign prince
who positively refused to become a knight of the Garter! In the same
reign Edward, King of Portugal, was elected in the place of his father,
John:--this is one of the few instances in which the honor has passed
from father to son. The Duke of Coimbra, also elected in this reign,
was of a foreign princely house, but he was not a sovereign prince.
He may reckon with the alien knights generally. The Duke of Austria
too, Albert, was elected before he came to a kingly and to an imperial
throne; and against these princes I may place the name of Gaston de
Foix, whom Henry V. had made Earl of Longueville, as that of a simple
alien knight of good estate and knightly privileges. One or two scions
of royal houses were elected, as was Alphonso, King of Aragon. But
there is strong reason for believing that Alphonso declined the honor.
There is some uncertainty as to the period of the election of Frederick
III., that economical Emperor of Austria, who begged to know what the
expenses would amount to, before he would “accept the order.” All the
garters not home-distributed, did not go to deck the legs of foreign
sovereign princes. Toward the close of the reign we find the Vicomte de
Chastillion elected, and also D’Almada, the Portuguese knight of whose
jolly installation at the Lion in Brentford, I have already spoken.
An Aragonese gentleman, Francis de Surienne, was another alien knight
of simply noble quality; he was elected in the King’s bedchamber at
Westminster; and the alien knights would more than balance the foreign
sovereign princes, even if we throw in Casimir, King of Poland, who was
added to the confraternity under the royal Lancastrian.
The first foreigner whom Edward IV. raised to companionship in the
order, was not a prince, but a private gentleman named Gaillard Duras
or Durefort. The honor was conferred in acknowledgment of services
rendered to the King, in France; and the new knight was very speedily
deprived of it, for traitorously transferring his services to the
King of France. Of the foreign monarchs who are said to have been
_elected_ companions, during this reign--namely, the Kings of Spain
and Portugal--there is much doubt whether the favor was conferred at
all. The Dukes of Ferrara and Milan were created knights, and these
may be reckoned among ducal sovereigns, although less than kings; and
let me add that, if the Kings of Spain and Portugal _were_ elected,
the elections became void, because these monarchs failed to send
proxies to take possession of their stalls. Young Edward V. presided
at no election, and his uncle and successor, Richard III., received no
foreign prince into the order. At the installation, however, of the
short-lived son of Richard, that sovereign created Geoffrey de Sasiola,
embassador from the Queen of Spain, a knight, by giving him three blows
on the shoulders with a sword, and by investing him with a gold collar.
Henry VII. was not liberal toward foreigners with the many garters
which fell at his disposal, after Bosworth, and during his reign. He
appears to have exchanged with Maximilian, the Garter for the Golden
Fleece, and to have conferred the same decoration on one or two heirs
to foreign thrones, who were not sovereign princes when elected.
It was not often that these princes were installed in person. Such
installation, however, did occasionally happen; and never was one more
singular in its origin and circumstances, than that of Philip, Archduke
of Austria. Philip had resolved to lay claim to the throne of Spain by
right of his wife Joan, daughter of Ferdinand of Castile and Aragon. He
was on his way to Spain, when foul winds and a tempestuous sea drove
him into Weymouth. Henry invited him to Windsor, treated him with great
hospitality, and installed him Knight of the Garter. Philip “took the
oath to observe the statutes, without any other qualification than
that he might not be obliged to attend personally at the chapters, or
to wear the collar, except at his own pleasure. In placing the collar
round his neck, and in conducting him to his stall, Henry addressed him
as ‘Mon fils,’ while Philip, in return, called the King ‘Mon père,’ and
these affectionate appellations are repeated in the treaty of peace and
unity between the two countries, which was signed by Henry and Philip,
while sitting in their respective stalls, and to the maintenance of
which they were both then solemnly sworn. Previously to the offering,
Philip wished to stand before his stall, like the other knights, and to
follow the King to the altar, requesting to be allowed to do his duty
as a knight and brother of the order ought to do to the sovereign; but
Henry declined, and taking him by the left hand, the two Kings offered
together. After the ceremony, Philip invested Henry, Prince of Wales,
with the collar of the Golden Fleece, into which order he had, it is
said, been elected at Middleburgh in the preceding year, 1506.
Under Henry VIII. we find the first Scottish monarch who ever wore
the Garter, namely James V. He accepted the insignia “with princely
heart and will,” but, in a formal instrument, he set down the statutes
which he would swear to observe, and he rejected all others. Francis,
King of France, Charles V., Emperor of Germany, and Ferdinand, King of
Hungary, were also members of the order. But the _sovereign_ princes
elected during this reign did not outnumber the alien knights of
less degree. When Henry was at Calais, he held a chapter, at which
Marshal Montmorency, Count de Beaumont, and Philip de Chabot, Count
de Neublanc, were elected into the order. This occasion was the first
and only time that the Kings of England and France attended together
and voted as companions in the chapters of their respective orders.
Like the other knights, Francis nominated for election into the
Garter, three earls or persons of higher degree, three barons, and
three knights-bachelors, and the names present an interesting fact,
which has not been generally noticed. Henry was then enamored of Anne
Boleyn, whom he had recently created Marchioness of Pembroke, and who
accompanied him to Calais. With a solitary exception, the French King
gave all his suffrages for his own countrymen, and as the exception
was in favor of her brother, George, Lord Rochford, it was evidently
intended as a compliment to the future Queen of England.
It was the intention of Edward VI. to have created Lewis, Marquis of
Gonzaga, a knight of the order, but there is no evidence that he was
elected. It is difficult to ascertain the exact course of things during
this reign; for Mary, subsequently, abrogated all the changes made
by Edward, in order to adopt the statutes to the exigencies of the
reformed religion. She did even more than this; she caused the register
to be defaced, by erasing every insertion which was not in accordance
with the Romish faith. It is known, however, that Henri II. of France
was elected. His investiture took place in a bed-room of the Louvre in
Paris. He rewarded the Garter King-at-arms with a gold chain worth two
hundred pounds, and his own royal robe, ornmented with “aglets,” and
worth twenty-five pounds. Against this one sovereign prince we have to
set the person of an alien knight--the Constable of France. The foreign
royal names on the list were, however, on the accession of Mary, three
against one of foreign knights of lower degree. That of Philip of Spain
soon made the foreign royal majority still greater; and this majority
may be said to have been further increased by the election of the
sovereign Duke of Savoy. Mary elected no foreign knight beneath the
degree of sovereign ruler--whether king or duke.
Elizabeth very closely followed the same principle. Her foreign knights
were sovereigns, or about to become so. The first was Adolphus, Duke of
Holstein, son of the King of Denmark, and heir of Norway. The second
was Charles IX. of France, and the third, Frederick, King of Denmark;
the Emperor Rudolf was, perhaps, a fourth; and the fifth, Henri Quatre,
the last king of France who wore the Garter till the accession of
Louis XVIII. As for the Spanish widower of Mary, Sir Harris Nicholas
observes, “Philip, king of Spain, is said to have returned the Garter
by the hands of the Queen’s ambassador, Viscount Montague, who had been
sent to induce him to renew the alliance between England and Burgundy.
Philip did not conceal his regret at the change which had taken
place in the religion and policy of his country; but he displayed no
sectarian bitterness, expresses himself still desirous of opposing the
designs of the French, who sought to have Elizabeth excommunicated, and
stated that he had taken measures to prevent this in the eyes of a son
of the Church of Rome, the greatest of all calamities, from befalling
her, without her own consent. It appears, however, that Elizabeth did
not accept of Philip’s resignation of the Garter, for he continued a
companion until his decease, notwithstanding the war between England
and Spain, and the attempt to invade this country by the Spanish Armada
in 1588.”
When I say Elizabeth closely followed the example of Mary I should add
as an instance wherein she departed therefrom--the election of Francis
Duke of Montmorency, envoy from the French King. The Queen bestowed
this honor on the Duke, “in grateful commemoration,” says Camden, “of
the love which Anne, constable of France, his father, bore unto her.”
At the accession of James I., however, Henri IV. of France was the only
foreigner, sovereign or otherwise, who wore the order of the Garter.
Those added by James were the King of Denmark, the Prince of Orange,
and the Prince Palatine. Of the latter I have spoken in another place;
I will only notice further here, that under James, all precedence of
stalls was taken away from princes below a certain rank; that is to
say, the last knights elected, even the King’s own son, must take the
last stall. It was also then declared “that all princes, not absolute,
should be installed, henceforth, in the puisne place.”
There was _one_ foreign knight, however, whose installation deserves a
word apart, for it was marked by unusual splendor, considering how very
small a potentate was the recipient of the honor. This was Christian,
Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. On the last day of the year 1624,
James, with his own hands, placed the riband and George round the neck
of the Duke. The latter was then twenty-four years of age. “The Duke
of Brunswick,” says Chamberlain, in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton,
January 8, 1625, “can not complain of his entertainment, which was
every way complete, very good and gracious words from the King, with
the honor of the Garter, and a pension of two thousand pounds a year.
The Prince lodged him in his own lodgings, and at parting, gave him
three thousand pounds in gold, besides other presents.” James conferred
the Garter on no less than seven of his Scottish subjects. If these may
be reckoned now, what they were considered then, as mere foreigners,
the alien knights will again outnumber the foreign sovereign princes,
wearers of the Garter.
The first knight invested by Charles I. was an alien chevalier, of
only noble degree. This was the Duke de Chevreuse, who was Charles’s
proxy at his nuptials with Henrietta Maria, and who thus easily won
the honors of chivalry among the Companions of St. George. It seems,
however, that the honor in question was generally won by foreigners,
because of their being engaged in furthering royal marriages. Thus,
when the King’s agent in Switzerland, Mr. Fleming, in the year 1633,
suggested to the government that the Duke of Rohan should be elected
a knight of the Garter, Mr. Secretary Coke made reply that “The
proposition hath this inconvenience, that the rites of that ancient
order comport not with innovation, and no precedent can be found of any
foreign subject ever admitted into it, if he were not employed in an
inter-marriage with this crown, as the Duke of Chevreuse lately was.”
There certainly was not a word of truth in what the Secretary Coke thus
deliberately stated. Not only had the Garter frequently been conferred
on foreign subjects who had had nothing to do as matrimonial agents
between sovereign lovers, but only twelve years after Coke thus wrote,
Charles conferred the order upon the Duke d’Espernon, who had no claim
to it founded upon such service as is noticed by the learned secretary.
At the death of Charles I. there was not, strictly speaking, a single
foreign sovereign prince belonging to the order. The three foreign
princes, Rupert, William of Orange, and the Elector Palatine, can
not justly be called so. The other foreign knights were the Dukes of
Chevreuse and Espernon.
The foreign knights of the order created by Charles II. were Prince
Edward, son of “Elizabeth of Bohemia;” Prince Maurice, his elder
brother; Henry, eldest son of the Duke de Thouas, William of Nassau,
then three years of age, and subsequently our William III.; Frederick,
Elector of Brandenburg; Gaspar, Count de Morchin; Christian, Prince
Royal of Denmark; Charles XI., King of Sweden; George, Elector of
Saxony; and Prince George of Denmark, husband of the Princess Anne.
It will be seen that those who could be strictly called “sovereign
princes,” claiming allegiance and owing none, do not outnumber
alien knights who were expected to render obedience, and could
not sovereignly exert it. Denmark and Sweden, it may be observed,
quarrelled about precedency of stalls with as much bitterness as if
they had been burghers of the “Krähwinkel” of Kotzebue.
The short reign of James II. presents us with only one alien Knight of
the Garter, namely, Louis de Duras, created also Earl of Feversham. “Il
était le second de son nom,” says the Biographie Universelle, “qui eut
été honoré de cette decoration, remarque particulière dans la noblesse
Française.”
The great Duke of Schomberg, that admirable warrior given to England
by the tyranny of Louis XIV., was the first person invested with the
Garter by William III. The other foreign knights invested by him were
the first King of Prussia, William Duke of Zell, the Elector of Saxony,
William Bentinck (Earl of Portland), Von Keppel (Earl of Albemarle),
and George of Hanover (our George I.) Here the alien knights, not of
sovereign degree, again outnumbered those who _were_ of that degree.
The Elector of Saxony refused to join William against France, unless
the Garter were first conferred on him.
Anne conferred the Garter on Meinhardt Schomberg, Duke of Leinster,
son of the great Schomberg; and also on George Augustus of Hanover
(subsequently George II. of England). Anne intimated to George Louis,
the father of George Augustus, that, being a Knight of the Garter, he
might very appropriately invest his own son. George Louis, however,
hated that son, and would have nothing to do with conferring any
dignity upon him. He left it with the commissioners, Halifax and
Vanbrugh, to act as they pleased. They performed their vicarious office
as they best could, and that was only with “maimed rights.” George
Louis, with his ordinary spiteful meanness, ordered the ceremony
to be cut short of all display. He would not even permit his son to
be invested with the habit, under a canopy as was usual, and as had
been done in his own case; all that he would grant was an ordinary
arm-chair, whereon the electoral prince might sit in state, if he
chose, or was able to do so! These were the only foreigners upon whom
Anne conferred the Garter; an order which she granted willingly to very
few persons indeed.
“It is remarkable,” says Nicolas, “that the order was not conferred
by Queen Anne upon the Emperor, nor upon any of the other sovereigns
with whom she was for many years confederated against France. Nor did
her Majesty bestow it upon King Charles III. of Spain, who arrived
in England in September, 1703, nor upon Prince Eugene (though, when
she presented him with a sword worth five thousand pounds sterling on
taking his leave in March, 1712 there were seven vacant ribands), nor
any other of the great commanders of the allied armies who, under the
Duke of Marlborough, gained those splendid victories that rendered her
reign one of the most glorious in the annals of this country.”
George I. had more regard for his grandson than for his son; and he
made Frederick (subsequently father of George III.) a Companion of
the Order, when he was not more than nine years of age. He raised to
the same honor his own brother, Prince Ernest Augustus, and invested
both knights at a Chapter held in Hanover in 1711. With this family
exception, the Order of the Garter was not conferred upon any foreign
prince in the reign of George I.
George II. gave the Garter to that deformed Prince of Orange who
married his excitable daughter Anne. The same honor was conferred
on Prince Frederick of Hesse Cassel, who espoused George’s amiable
daughter Mary; Prince Frederick of Saxe Gotha, the Duke of Saxe
Weisenfels, the Margrave of Anspach, the fatherless son of the Prince
of Orange last named, and, worthiest of all, that Prince Ferdinand of
Brunswick who won the honor by gaining the battle of Minden. He was
invested with cap, habit, and decorations, in front of his tent and in
the face of his whole army. His gallant enemy, De Broglie, to do honor
to the new knight, proclaimed a suspension of arms for the day, drew
up his own troops where they could witness the spectacle of courage
and skill receiving their reward, and with his principal officers
dining with the Prince in the evening. “Each party,” says Miss Banks,
“returned at night to his army, in order to recommence the hostilities
they were engaged in, by order of their respective nations, against
each other, on the next rising of the sun.” I do not know what this
anecdote most proves--the cruel absurdity of war, or the true chivalry
of warriors.
The era of George III. was indeed that in which foreign princes,
sovereign and something less than that, abounded in the order. The
first who received the Garter was the brother of Queen Charlotte,
the reigning Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz. Then came the Duke of
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who married Augusta, the sister of George
III. Caroline of Brunswick was the issue of this marriage. Of the
kings, _roitelets_, and petty princes of Germany who were added to
the Garter, or rather, had the Garter added to them, it is not worth
while speaking; but there is an incident connected with the foreign
knights which _does_ merit to be preserved. When Bonaparte founded
the Legion of Honor, he prevailed on the King of Prussia (willing to
take anything for his own, and reluctant to sacrifice anything for the
public good) to accept the cross of the Legion for himself, and several
others assigned to him for distribution. The king rendered himself
justly abhorred for this disgraceful act; but he found small German
princes quite as eager as he was to wear the badge of the then enemy
of Europe. A noble exception presented itself in the person of the
Duke of Brunswick, a Knight of the Garter, to whom the wretched king
sent the insignia of the French order in 1805. The duke, in a letter
to the king, refused to accept such honor, “because, in his quality of
Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, he was prevented from
receiving any badge of chivalry instituted by a person at war with the
sovereign of that order.” The Prussian king found an easier conscience
in the Prince of Hesse Cassel, who was also a Knight of the Garter.
This individual, mean and double-faced as the king, wore the cross of
the Legion of Honor with the Garter. At _that_ troubled period, it was
exactly as if some nervous lairds, in the days of Highland feuds, had
worn, at the same time, the plaids of the Macdonalds and Campbells, in
order to save their skins and estates by thus pretending to be members
of two hostile parties.