Knights and their days

by Dr. Doran

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.”