In whose [Edward the Fourth’s] time, and by whose occasion, what about the getting of the garland, keeping it, losing and winning again, it hath cost more English blood than hath twice the winning of France.—Sir T. More, History of King Richard III. p. 107.
What in me was purchased,
Falls unto thee in a more fairer sort;
So now the garland wear’st successively.
Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV. act iv. sc. 4.
Garret. The Old French ‘garite,’ which is our ‘garret,’ is properly a place of refuge or safety, being derived from the verb ‘garir;’ thus ‘gagner la guérite,’ to save oneself by flight. But this place of safety would be often on a high wall, in a watch-tower, upon the tops of houses; and thus the notion of the ‘garret’ was connected with that of the highest stage or storey. The subaudition of its being the poorest and meanest place in the house is an afterthought, and certainly has no place in any of the following uses of the word.
Thanne walkede y ferrer, and went al abouten,
And seigh halles full hyghe, and houses ful noble
With gaie garites and grete, and iche hole y-glased.
Peres the Plowman’s Crede, l. 214 (Skeat).