Chivalry’s oldest honour — the Order of the Garter — was born on the dance floor 670 years ago
KING Arthur’s knights of the round table may be the stuff of legend, but Britain’s oldest knighthood is still among us.
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King Arthur’s knights of the round table may be the stuff of legend, but Britain’s oldest order of knighthood is still among us.
The Most Noble Order of the Garter is Great Britain’s highest honour, founded by King Edward III 670 years ago.
In 1348, Great Britain was at war with France, in what became known as the Hundred Years War, and the Black Death had spread from Europe to the British Isles.
Medieval England was plagued and its king was hungry for glory.
Edward III was a king of warfare, and it is believed he founded the chivalrous order inspired by the saga of King Arthur and his loyal knights, Britain’s legendary defender against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries.
When Edward died in 1377, medieval scribe Jean Froissart even drew a parallel between the two kings.
“His like had not been seen since the days of King Arthur,” he wrote.
While the earliest records of the order were lost to fire, numerous scripts and books have been published throughout the centuries documenting the illustrious fraternity.
London’s Churchill Society prescribes to one of the versions of the origin of the order’s name: an anecdote attributed to King Edward.
“At a Court ball, where a lady, (maybe the Countess of Salisbury), lost one of her garters it is said that when bending down and picking it up — the lady blushing and those present laughing, King Edward tied the garter around his own leg, with the remark, ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’,” the society said. The remark, which translates to “shame be to him who thinks evil of it”, became the order’s motto.
The exclusive Order of the Garter was drawn up to include the King, the Prince of Wales and 12 knight companions each.
St George was designated the patron saint of the noble fraternity.
In accepting the honour, Knight companions were told “having undertaken a just war, into which thou shalt be engaged, thou mayest stand firm, valiantly fight, courageously and successfully conquer”.
While bestowing the Elector of Brandenburg with the Order of the Garter in 1690, British envoy James Johnston called it the “Mother-Order”.
“Nothing excites in men the desire of glory so much as signal and lasting marks of honours ... of these marks, the most eminent have been appropriated to chivalry,” he said.
“Among Military Orders, there are none that can dispute either antiquity or dignity with that of the Garter, which may indeed be called the Mother-Order; for the other great orders have sprung out of this root, being formed upon the model of it.”
In nearly seven centuries only 1009 people have been presented with the illustrious title, however a handful have been degraded and stripped of the honours in that time. Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Mashram who became a Knight Companion in 1410, was degraded and beheaded in 1415 for his apparent involvement in the Southampton Plot — a conspiracy to dethrone King Henry V.
Ironically he was a confidante of the kings and was described by William Shakespeare as a “bedfellow” of the king. “His severed head was sent on a pike to rot on the gates of the northern English city of York,” Time wrote of his death.
While its membership used to be limited to aristocratic men, and while there are still only 24 places, the British royal family has relaxed requirements.
In 1987 Elizabeth permitted women to be appointed full companions of the order, known as Ladies Companion.
Duchess of Norfolk Lavinia Fitzalan-Howard in 1990 was the first to accept the order. Today the only woman member is former director general of MI5, Baroness Elizabeth Manningham-Buller.
Membership was also expanded in the late 18th century to include certain members of the royal family, aside from the 24 places. These unique positions are known as Royal Knights and Ladies Companion.
Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, became the 1000th member of order in 2008 when he was awarded the honour. Today Knights and Ladies Companions are chosen from a variety of backgrounds and in recognition for their public service rather than just “military chivalry”.
Perhaps one of the most memorable members of the 20th century, Sir Winston Churchill, famously rejected the first opportunity to accept the honours of an admission to the order.
“I can hardly accept the Order of the Garter from the king after the people have given me the Order of the Boot,” the former British Prime Minister said after his election defeat in 1945. He eventually accepted the honour in 1953.
Appointments to fill any vacancies in the order are announced by the British monarch to coincide with St George’s Day, today.