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.
Under the Regency of George IV., the foreign sovereign princes were admitted into the order without any regard whatever to the regulations by statute. Within one year, or very little more than that period, two emperors, three kings, and an heir to a throne, who soon after came to his inheritance, were enrolled Companions of the order. But it was the era of victories and rejoicings, and no one thought of objecting to a prodigality which would have astounded the royal founder. Long after the period of victory, however, the same liberality continued to be evinced toward foreign princes of sovereign degree. Thus at the accession of Charles X., the England monarch despatched the Duke of Northumberland as Embassador Extraordinary to attend at the coronation of the French monarch, and to invest him, subsequently, with the Order of the Garter. I remember seeing the English procession pass from the duke’s residence in the Rue du Bac, over the Pont Royal to the Tuileries. It puzzled the French people extremely. It took place on Tuesday, June 7, 1825. At noon, “four of the royal carriages,” says the Galignani of the period, “drawn by eight horses, in which were the Baron de Lalivre and M. de Viviers, were sent to the Hotel Galifet for the Duke of Northumberland.” The two envoys who thus contrived to ride in four carriages and eight horses—a more wonderful feat than was ever accomplished by Mr. Ducrow—having reached the ducal hotel, were received by the duke, Lord Granville, our ordinary embassador, and Sir George Naylor, his Britannic Majesty’s Commissioners charged to invest the King of France with the insignia of the Garter. The procession then set out; and, as I have said, it perplexed the French spectators extremely. They could not imagine that so much ceremony was necessary in order to put a garter round a leg, and hang a collar from a royal neck. Besides the four French carriages-and-eight, there were three of the duke’s carriages drawn by six horses; one carriage of similar state, and two others more modestly drawn by pairs, belonging to Lord Granville. The carriage of “Garter” himself, behind a couple of ordinary steeds; and eight other carriages, containing the suites of the embassadors, or privileged persons who passed for such in order to share in the spectacle, closed the procession. The duke had a very noble gathering around him, namely, the Hon. Algernon Percy, his secretary, the Marquis of Caermarthen, the Earl of Hopetoun, Lords Prudhoe (the present duke), Strathaven, Pelham, and Hervey, the Hon. Charles Percy, and the goodhumored-looking Archdeacon Singleton. Such was the entourage of the embassador extraordinary. The ordinary embassador, Lord Granville, was somewhat less nobly surrounded. He had with him the Hon. Mr. Bligh, and Messrs. Mandeville, Gore, Abercrombie, and Jones. Sir George Naylor, in his Tabard, was accompanied by a cloud of heralds, some of whom have since become kings-of-arms—namely, Messrs. Woods, Young, and Wollaston, and his secretary, Mr. Howard. More noticeable men followed in the train. There were Earl Gower and Lord Burghersh, the “Honorables” Mr. Townshend, Howard, and Clive, Captain Buller, and two men more remarkable than all the rest—the two embassadors included—namely, Sir John Malcolm and Sir Sidney Smith. Between admiring spectators, who were profoundly amazed at the sight of the duke in his robes, the procession arrived at the palace, where, after a pause and a reorganizing in the Hall of Embassadors, the party proceeded in great state into the Gallery of Diana. Here a throne had been especially erected for the investiture, and the show was undoubtedly most splendid. Charles X. looked in possession of admirable health and spirits—of everything, indeed, but bright intellect. He was magnificently surrounded. The duke wore with his robes that famous diamond-hilted sword which had been presented to him by George IV., and which cost, I forget how many thousand pounds. His heron’s plume alone was said to be worth five hundred guineas. His superb mantle of blue velvet, embroidered with gold, was supported by his youthful nephew, George Murray (the present Duke of Athol), dressed in a Hussar uniform, and the Hon. James Drummond, in a Highland suit. Seven gentlemen had the responsible mission of carrying the insignia on cushions, and Sir George preceded them, bearing a truncheon, as “Garter Principal King-at-arms.” The duke recited an appropriate address, giving a concise history of the order, and congratulating himself on having been employed on the present honorable mission. The investiture took place with the usual ceremonies; but I remember that there was no salute of artillery, as was enjoined in the book of instructions drawn up by Garter. The latter official performed his office most gracefully, and attached to the person of the King of France, that day, pearls worth a million of francs. The royal knight made a very pleasant speech when all was concluded, and the usual hospitality followed the magnificent labors of an hour and a half’s continuance.
On the following evening, the Duke gave a splendid fête at his hotel, in honor of the coronation of Charles X., and of his admission into the Order of the Garter. The King and Queen of Wurtemburg were present, with some fifteen hundred persons of less rank, but many of whom were of greater importance in society. Perhaps not the least remarkable feature of the evening was the presence together, in one group, of the Dauphin and that Duchess of Angoulême who was popularly known as the “orphan girl of the Temple,” with the Duchess of Berri, the Duke of Orleans (Louis Philippe), and Talleyrand. The last-named still wore the long bolster-cravat, of the time of the Revolution, and looked as cunning as though he knew the destiny that awaited the entire group, three of whom have since died in exile—he alone breathing his last sigh, in calm tranquillity, in his own land.
Charles X. conferred on the ducal bearer of the insignia of the Garter a splendid gift—one of the finest and most costly vases ever produced at the royal manufacture of Porcelain at Sèvres. The painting on it, representing the Tribunal of Diana, is the work of M. Leguai, and it occupied that distinguished artist full three years before it was completed. Considering its vast dimensions, the nature of the painting, and its having passed twice through the fire without the slightest alteration, it is unique of its kind. This colossal vase now stands in the centre of the ball-room in Northumberland House.
The last monarch to whom a commission has carried the insignia of the Garter, was the Czar Nicholas. It was characteristic of the man that, courteous as he was to the commissioners, he would not, as was customary in such cases, dine with them. They were entertained, however, according to his orders, by other members of his family. It is since the reign of George III. that Mr. Macaulay’s remark touching the fact of the Garter being rarely conferred on aliens, except sovereign princes, may be said to be well-founded. No alien, under princely rank, now wears the Garter. The most illustrious of the foreign knights are the two who were last created by patent, namely, the Emperor Louis Napoleon and the King of Sardinia. The King of Prussia is also a knight of the order, and, as such, he is bound by his oath never to act against the sovereign of that order; but in our struggle with felonious Russia, the Prussian government, affecting to be neutral, imprisons an English consul on pretence that the latter has sought to enlist natives of Prussia into the English service, while, on the other hand, it passes over to Russia the material for making war, and sanctions the raising of a Russian loan in Berlin, to be devoted, as far as possible, to the injury of England. The King is but a poor knight!—and, by the way, that reminds me that the once so-called poor knights of Windsor can not be more appropriately introduced than here.
THE POOR KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR,
AND THEIR DOINGS.
The founder of the Order of the Garter did well when he thought of the “Milites pauperes,” and having created a fraternity for wealthy and noble cavaliers, created one also for the same number of “poor knights, infirm of body, indigent and decayed,” who should be maintained for the honor of God and St. George, continually serve God in their devotions, and have no further heavy duty, after the days of bustle and battle, than to pray for the prosperity of all living knights of the Garter, and for the repose of the souls of all those who were dead. It was resolved that none but really poor knights should belong to the fraternity, whether named, as was their privilege, by a companion of the noble order, or by the sovereign, as came at last to be exclusively the case. If a poor knight had the misfortune to become the possessor of property of any sort realizing twenty pounds per annum, he became at once disqualified for companionship. Even in very early times, his position, with house, board, and various aids, spiritual and bodily, was worth more than this.
To be an alms knight, as Ashmole calls each member, implied no degradation whatever; quite the contrary. Each poor but worthy gentleman was placed on a level with the residentiary canons of Windsor. Like these, they received twelvepence each, every day that they attended service in the chapel, or abode in the College, with a honorarium of forty shillings annually for small necessaries. Their daily presence at chapel was compulsory, except good and lawful reason could be shown for the contrary. The old knights were not only required to be at service, but at high mass, the masses of the Virgin Mary, as also at Vespers and Complins—from the beginning to the end. They earned their twelvepence honestly, but nevertheless the ecclesiastical corporation charged with the payment, often did what such corporations, of course, have never tried to do since the Reformation—namely, cheat those who ought to have been recipients of their due. Dire were the discussions between the poor (and pertinacious) knights, and the dean, canons, and treasurers of the College. It required a mitred Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England to settle the dispute, and a very high opinion does it afford us of the good practical sense of Church and Chancery in the days of Henry VI., when we find that the eminent individual with the double office not only came to a happy conclusion rapidly, and ordered all arrears to be paid to the poor knights, but decreed that the income of the treasurer should be altogether stopped, until full satisfaction was rendered to the “milites pauper.” For the sake of such Chancery practice one would almost consent to take the Church with it.