THE GARTER

"Breathes there a man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said——

I should uncommonly like to be a Knight of the Garter?" If such there be, let him forswear this column and pass on to the Cotton Market or the Education Bill. Here we cater for those in whom the historic instinct is combined with picturesque sensibility, and who love to trace the stream of the national life as it flows through long-descended rites. Lord Acton wrote finely of "Institutions which incorporate tradition and prolong the reign of the dead." No institution fulfils this ideal more absolutely than the Order of the Garter. One need not always "commence with the Deluge"; and there is no occasion to consult the lively oracles of Mrs. Markham for the story of the dropped garter and the chivalrous motto. It is enough to remember that the Order links the last enchantments of the Middle Age with the Twentieth Century, and that for at least four hundred years it has played a real, though hidden, part in the secret strategy of English Statecraft.

We are told by travellers that the Emperor of Lilliput rewarded his courtiers with three fine silken threads of about six inches long, one of which was blue, one red, and one green. The method by which these rewards were obtained is thus described by an eye-witness: "The Emperor holds a stick in his hands, both ends parallel to the horizon, while the candidates, advancing one by one, sometimes leap over it, sometimes creep under it, backwards and forwards, several times, according as the stick is elevated or depressed. Whoever shows the most agility and performs his part best of leaping and creeping is rewarded with the blue coloured silk, the next with the red, and so on."

To-day we are not concerned with the red silk, wisely invented by Sir Robert Walpole for the benefit of those who could not aspire to the blue; nor with the green, which illustrates the continuous and separate polity of the Northern Kingdom. The blue silk supplies us with all the material we shall need. In its wider aspect of the Blue Ribbon, it has its secure place in the art, the history, and the literature of England; though perhaps the Dryasdusts of future ages will be perplexed by the ManichÆan associations which will then have gathered round it. "When," they will ask, "and by what process, did the ensign of a high chivalric Order which originated at a banquet become the symbol of total abstinence from fermented drinks?" Even so, a high-toned damsel from the State of Maine, regarding the Blue Ribbon which girt Lord Granville's white waistcoat, congratulated him on the boldness with which he displayed his colours, and then shrank back in astonished horror as he raised his claret-glass to his lips. In one of the prettiest of historical novels Amy Robsart is represented as examining with childish wonder the various badges and decorations which her husband wears, while Leicester, amused by her simplicity, explains the significance of each. "The embroidered strap, as thou callest it, around my knee," he said, "is the English Garter, an ornament which Kings are proud to wear. See, here is the star which belongs to it, and here is the diamond George, the jewel of the Order. You have heard how King Edward and the Countess of Salisbury——" "Oh, I know all that tale," said the Countess, slightly blushing, "and how a lady's garter became the proudest badge of English chivalry."

There are certain families which may be styled "Garter Families," so constant—almost unbroken—has been the tradition that the head of the family should be a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order. Such is the House of Beaufort; is there not a great saloon at Badminton walled entirely with portraits of Dukes of Beaufort in their flowing mantles of Garter-Blue? Such is the House of Bedford, which has worn the Garter from the reign of Henry VIII. till now; such the House of Norfolk, which contrived to retain its Garters, though it often lost its head, in times of civil commotion. The Dukes of Devonshire, again, have been habitual Garter-wearers; and the fourteenth Earl of Derby, though he refused a dukedom, was proud to accept an extra Garter (raising the number of Knights above the statutory twenty-five), which Queen Victoria gave him as a consolation for his eviction from the Premiership in 1859. Punch, then, as now, no respecter of persons, had an excellent cartoon of a blubbering child, to whom a gracious lady soothingly remarks, "Did he have a nasty tumble, then? Here's something pretty for him to play with." The Percys, again, were pre-eminently a Garter Family; sixteen heads of the house have worn Blue silk. So far as the male line was concerned, they came to an end in 1670. The eventual heiress of the house married Sir Hugh Smithson, who acquired the estates and assumed the name of the historic Percys. Having, in virtue of this great alliance, been created Earl of Northumberland, Sir Hugh begged George III. to give him the Garter. When the King demurred, the aspirant exclaimed, in the bitterness of his heart, "I am the first Northumberland who ever was refused the Garter." To which the King replied, not unreasonably, "And you are the first Smithson who ever asked for it." However, there are forms of political pressure to which even Kings must yield, and people who had "borough influence" could generally get their way when George III. wanted some trustworthy votes in the House of Commons. So Sir Hugh Smithson died a Duke and a K.G., and since his day the Percys have been continuously Gartered.

But it is in the sphere of rank just below that of the "Garter Families" that the Blue silk of Swift's imagination exercises its most potent influence. Men who are placed by the circumstances of their birth far beyond the temptations of mere cupidity, men who are justly satisfied with their social position and have no special wish to be transmogrified into marquises or dukes, are found to desire the Garter with an almost passionate fondness. Many a curious vote in a stand-or-fall division, many an unexpected declaration at a political crisis, many a transfer of local influence at an important election has been dictated by calculations about a possible Garter. It was this view of the decoration which inspired Lord Melbourne when, to the suggestion that he should take a vacant Garter for himself, he replied, "But why should I? I don't want to bribe myself." This same light-hearted statesman disputes with Lord Palmerston the credit of having said, "The great beauty of the Garter is that there's no d—— d nonsense of merit about it;" but it was undoubtedly Palmerston who declined to pay the customary fees to the Dean and Chapter of Windsor, and on being gravely told that, unless he paid, his banner could not be erected in St. George's Chapel, replied that, as he never went to church at Windsor or anywhere else, the omission would not much affect him.

What made the recent Chapter of the Garter peculiarly exciting to such as have Æsthetic as well as historic minds was the fact that, for once, the Knights might be seen in the full splendour of their magnificent costume. No other Order has so elaborate a paraphernalia, and every detail smacks deliciously of the antique world. The long, sweeping mantle of Garter-blue is worn over a surcoat and hood of crimson velvet. The hat is trimmed with ostrich feathers and heron's plumes. The enamelled collar swings majestically from shoulder to shoulder; from it depends the image of St. George trampling down the dragon; and round the left knee runs the Garter itself, setting forth the motto of the Order in letters of gold. It is a truly regal costume; and those who saw Lord Spencer so arrayed at the Coronation of King Edward might have fancied that they were gazing on an animated Vandyke. These full splendours of the Order are seldom seen, but some modifications of them appear on stated occasions. The King was married in the mantle of the Garter, worn over a Field-Marshal's uniform; and a similar practice is observed at ceremonies in St. George's Chapel. The Statutes of the Order bind every Knight, on his chivalric obedience, to wear the badge—the "George," as it is technically called—at all times and places. In obedience to this rule the Marquis of Abercorn, who died in 1818, always went out shooting in the Blue Ribbon from which, in ordinary dress, the badge depends. But those were the days when people played cricket in tall hats and attended the House of Commons in knee-breeches and silk stockings. Prince Albert, whose conscience in ceremonial matters was even painfully acute, always wore his Blue Ribbon over his shirt and below his waistcoat; and in his ancient photographs it can be dimly traced crossing his chest in the neighbourhood of his shirt studs. But to-day one chiefly sees it at dinners. A tradition of the Order requires a Knight dining with a brother-Knight to wear it, and after dinner one may meet it at an evening party. The disuse of knee-breeches, except in Royal company, makes it practically impossible to display the actual Garter; unless one chooses to follow the example of the seventh Duke of Bedford, who, being of a skinny habit and feeling the cold intensely, yet desiring to display his Garter, used to wear it buckled round the trouser of his left leg. Lord Beaconsfield, in his later years, used to appear in the evening with a most magnificent Star of the Garter which had belonged to the wicked Lord Hertford, Thackeray's Steyne and his own Monmouth. It was a constellation of picked diamonds, surrounding St. George's Cross in rubies. After Lord Beaconsfield's death it was exposed for sale in a jeweller's window, and eventually was broken up and sold piecemeal. There was an opportunity missed. Lord Rosebery ought to have bought it, and kept it by him until he was entitled to wear it.

In picture-galleries one can trace the evolution of the Blue Ribbon through several shades and shapes. In pictures of the Tudor and Stuart periods it is a light blue ribbon, worn round the neck, with the George hanging, like a locket, in front. In Georgian pictures the ribbon is much darker, and is worn over the left shoulder, reaching down to the right thigh, where the George is displayed. I have heard that the alteration of position was due to the Duke of Monmouth, who, when a little boy, accidentally thrust his right arm through the ribbon, with a childish grace which fascinated his father. The change of colour was due to the fact that the exiled King at St. Germain's affected still to bestow the Order, and the English ribbon was made darker, so as to obviate all possible confusion between the reality and the counterfeit. Of late years, this reason having ceased to operate, the King has returned to the lighter shade.

The last Commoner who wore the Garter was Sir Robert Walpole. Sir Robert Peel refused it. It is the only honour which, I think, Mr. Gladstone could have accepted without loss of dignity. For he truly was a Knight sans peur et sans reproche, worthy to rank with those to whom, in the purer days of chivalry, the Cross of St. George was not the reward of an intrigue but the symbol of a faith.