This has been the general Use as we are ascertain’d, Anno 2 Hen. VI. the Dean of Windsor, and the Register of the Order, having Collected the Vote of every Knight, they were immediately given into the Hands of the Sovereign’s Deputy; and in the same nature were they presented on the 4th Hen. VI. when John Duke of Bedford was Lieutenant, in the 20th of Queen Eliz.; when the Suffrages were Collected by Sir Francis Walsingham the Chancellor, he gave them up to the Earl of Sussex, then Lieutenant to the Sovereign.
But it’s evident from several Passages in the Blue Book of the Order, that the Lieutenant afterward delivered them to the Sovereign, as is apparent from the Records of the 30th, 34th, 38th, and the 40th Year of Queen Eliz.
In the 12th Year of K. James I. some Exceptions arose upon the Chancellor’s not presenting the Scrutiny to the Prince, (who at that time was the Sovereign’s Lieutenant) but to the Sovereign himself, which was an Error he fell into, as well as some of his Predecessor’s; as the 2d, 3d, and 25th of Eliz. demonstrate.
The Sovereign’s Considerations upon the Qualifications of those
to be elected.
§ 12. As the Knights-Companions are under an Obligation, by the Statutes, to nominate no Person, but who can bear the Test of the afore-mention’d Qualifications, there’s a Standard of Honour provided for the Sovereign, to measure the Extraction, Quality, and Merit of the Person proposed to be elected, least it might chance, thro’ the Indulgence of the Sovereign, this Fountain of Honour might be mudded by the Choice of inferior and undeserving Persons, for the Statutes run—because this Order consists of Goodness, and honourable Virtue, doth not admit Unworthiness and Villany, and so by Consequence secludes all Persons of mean Extraction and Merit.
The Qualifications for Election are exhibited in the 2d Article, as in the 18th are included those of Nomination: The Words of the Institution are, That none shall be elected into the Order; and refer only to the Act of Election: For if we consult the rest of the Statutes, and compare them with this Passage, they run according to this Tenor, That none shall be elected and chosen a Companion of this Order. These refer more principally to the Time of the Election, and not to the Investiture with Garter, and George, and Installation, from the Expressions of admitting and receiving Knights into this Order, as the Examplars of the Statutes of Institution set forth. And this is farther illustrated, from another Passage in the 2d Article of Henry the VIII’s Statutes, where the Word Reproach is mentioned, saith, The Guilt thereof so incapacitates a Man’s Election, that for the future it’s a Bar, and utterly disqualifies him for that Honour.
There are Two Points requisite for Qualifications and Endowments; first, to be a Gentleman of Blood; and, 2dly, a Knight without Reproach. By the Statutes of Henry the Vth’s Institutions, no Man ought to be elected, unless he be a Gentleman born. The Examplar in the Black Book saith, Unless he be worthy upon the Account of Birth and Arms: And in another Passage, That he be one eminent for his Demeanour and good Report; which intimates the Conjunction of Blood and Virtue, which make up the noblest Composition. The Statutes of King Henry VIII. are more extensive than those, and say, He must be a Gentleman by Name, Arms, and Blood; and least this Character might seem intricate and perplex’d, A Gentleman of Blood is defin’d to be, One descended of three Descents of Nobles, viz. of Name and Arms, both by his Father and Mother’s side.
It’s certain Gentility does not receive its Perfection in the Person it was first devolv’d on, but is rather compleated by Succession: For, among the Romans, tho’ the Father was Free-born, and of the Equestrian Cense; yet it was farther requisite, that the Grand-father should be the same, or else they could not obtain the Ring, one of the Symbols of the Equestrian Order, as Pliny informs us. Gentility hath its beginning in the Grand-father, its increase in the Father, and full ripeness in the Son; and consequently in the Constitution of Gentility, the Father and Grand-father conveying a Lustre to the Son, make it entire and compleat; for its incongruous to suppose a ripeness in the Son, unless there had been a former encrease in the Father, and a longer Series from the Grand-father.
The memorable Instance of the Lord William Paget, who was divested of the Garter five Years after his Election, upon Pretence of his not being a Gentleman of Blood by either Father or Mother, proceeded not wholly from the defect in Point of Extraction, as Haward relates, but rather from the Prevalence and Practice of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, by whose means he was most unjustly deprived of the Garter; repenting, perhaps, at the great Honours he had done this Lord, by his fair Character of him to King Edward VI. when he procured him a new Grant of those Arms, under the Great Seal of England, when he was Earl Marshal, which he had some time before received from the Garter Principal King of Arms.
But, admit the defect of Blood and Arms, for three Descents, were the true Cause of the recalling his Garter, that it might be conferred upon the Earl of Warwick, eldest Son of the said Duke, who, out of courtesie, is called so, in which Relation both Haward and Stow have mistaken, for they were bestowed upon Sir Andrew Dudley, Brother to the Duke; for tho’ he was put in the Scrutiny enter’d among the Annals of Edward VI. in the Sixth Year of his Reign, upon St. George’s Day, yet was the Earl neither then, nor at any other time, elected.