Preface. IN the compilation of this book the following sources have been used: (1) For the ORDER OF THE GARTER the earlier portions of the list are based upon Beltz, Ashmole, Anstis, and Nicolas, primarily of course upon Beltz. But as Beltz includes King Edward III. among the original knights founders, and as I exclude him from their number (on the principle that the Sovereign stands outside the fraternity of knights proper), there is a difference between my enumeration and that of Beltz. I have also adopted a different method of expressing the succession. Where these authorities cease, I have relied entirely on the original records of the Order, viz., the Register of the Garter; Young's MS. Register, and the other collections, volumes, and loose papers of Garter King of Arms. For the very freest access to these records and kindest assistance throughout I am indebted to the courtesy of Sir Alfred Scott ScottGatty, Garter King of Arms, and of the Very Reverend Philip P. Eliot, D.D., Dean of Windsor. (2) The lists of the ORDER OF THE THISTLE are based entirely on the original records of the Order. These records consist of two volumes of registers and a mass of papers. The registers were carefully kept, and the entries fully recorded in them until the year 1830. From that date no further entry was made in them, and it is quite clear that these volumes dropped out of sight until they were re-discovered in the present year. The loose papers consisted of the usual official papers relating to knighthoods, ceremonial, and the statutes of the Order. To facilitate reference to all this material Sir Duncan A. D. Campbell, Bart., Usher of the Green Rod, and Secretary of the Order of the Thistle, most considerately had it all removed from the Heralds' College to the Record Office, and there we have together gone through the whole, sorted, classified and arranged it chronologically, and prepared the whole mass of it for the binder. As so arranged the knighthood papers extend to ten volumes, the official and ceremonial B papers to two more volumes, and the statutes fill a final volume. The whole thirteen volumes are now being bound at Sir Duncan's private expense. In giving me access to the papers and his most ungrudging co-operation throughout Sir Duncan has laid me under the greatest obligation. (3) The lists of the ORDER OF ST. PATRICK were taken directly in the first place from those published by G. E. Cockayne, Esq., Clarenceux in the Genealogist in 1888, with MS. additions from that date down to 1902, most kindly furnished to me by Clarenceux himself. This list was then submitted to Sir Arthur E. Vicars, K.C.V.O., Ulster King of Arms, and by him most carefully collated with the original records of the Order, and amended, annotated, and amplified. The kindness of Sir Arthur Vicars in this is enhanced by the fact that he had himself intended to print and prepare for the press just such a list. It is impossible to express sufficient appreciation of such courtesy. (4) For the records of the ORDER OF THE BATH the most diverse and varied sources have been used. For the very earlier periods the ultimate records are the Close Rolls and Wardrobe Accounts, preserved in the Public Record Office. Early in the eighteenth century Anstis surveyed this untravelled ocean of material with a zeal that would put to the blush any modern scholar. The results he published in the appendix to his "Essay upon the Knighthood of the Bath" (1725). This appendix has been the fountain head from which all later writers have drawn their information as to the early Knights of the Bath, and in the main in the present volume I have followed it and the appendix in Vol. III. of Nicolas. Here and there, however, I have gone behind Anstis to the original rolls and wardrobe accounts, with results that convince me that there is a rich harvest awaiting the man who will dare to do over again the work which Anstis did nearly two centuries since. In addition, I have printed from Ashmole the list of Knights of the Bath, made in 34 Edw. I., a list which Anstis consciously, and Nicolas, unconsciously, omitted to print. After the wardrobe accounts I have used the better known Heraldic MSS. from the date that these latter commence, viz., the early part of the fifteenth century. These comprise the following: Harl. MS. 2165, fo. 134 (Bath Knights in 1603). Lansdowne MS. 865, fo. 153-7 (Bath Knights temp. James I and Charles I.). Lansdowne MS, 261, fo. 140b (Bath Knights temp. James I.). Lansdowne MS. 269, fo. 241 (Bath Knights temp. Charles I.). Addit. MS. 34217 (Bath Knights in 1625). Addit. MS. 33053 (Newcastle Papers. Bath Knights about 1752). Addit. 6303, fo. 38 (Bath Knights in 1661). Stowe MS. 731 (Bath Knights in 1725). Addit. 34721 c. (Bath Knights from 1725). Harl. MS. 41, fos. I., 18, 25 (roughly Bath Knights temp. Stowe MS. 1047, fo. 225 (same). Harl. MS. 1386, fos. 16, 18 (Bath Knights temp. Richard III., Lansdowne MS. 255, fo. 450 (Bath Knights temp. Henry VII.). Harl. MS. 6166, fo. 130-2 (Bath Knights temp. Queen Mary). And in addition the following MSS. which will be found more fully described (infra pp. viii.-ix.). Harl. 5177; Harl. 6063; Cotton Claud C. III.; Harl. 1156; Harl. 293; Harl. 1959; Harl. 6069. The above sources extend from the earliest beginnings of Knighthood by the Bath to the definitive erection of the Order of the Bath by George I. in 1725. From this latter date I have used several parallel sources, viz.: (1) the Gazette; (2) the records of the Home Office as printed in the Calendar of Home Office papers; (3) the appendix to vol. iii. of Nicolas; (4) the records of the Bath as preserved in 12 folio MS. volumes at the War Office which I have collated from their commencement in 1827 to the present day; (5) the MS. records of the Order itself. These records were until his death in the keeping of Sir Albert Woods at the College of Arms. After his death they were, on the formation of the Central Chancery of Knighthood, transferred by Sir Albert's literary executors to the custody of the Central Chancery in the Lord Chamberlain's department at St. James's Palace. I must defer any full statement on them to another occasion. For access to them I am indebted first and foremost to the courtesy of Sir Arthur E. A. Ellis, G.C.V.O., Comptroller in the Lord Chamberlain's department and Secretary and Registrar of the Central Chancery of Knighthood. For every assistance in handling them and also in connexion with many other parts of my book I am indebted to the officials of the Lord Chamberlain's department. Similarly for access to the records at the War Office, and for assistance in working them I am indebted to Mr. Leland L. Duncan, M.V.O., of the War Office. (5) The Lists of the ORDER OF THE STAR OF INDIA are based almost entirely on the Gazette, collated with the lists which appeared annually in Burke, Dod, and the Imperial Calendar, and collated also with a list of present living knights, which has been compiled in the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood. The India Office in London does not possess the original register of the Order. If that register exists at all (which I cannot ascertain) it is in the keeping of the Secretary of the Order at Calcutta, and is quite inaccessible to me. Accordingly, I view this list of the Knights of the Star of India with dissatisfaction. Exactly the same sources have been used in compiling, and exactly the same remark applies to, the list of the Knights of the Order of the Indian Empire. In the indexing of the Indian names I have received very kind help from Mr. S. G. Smith, of the India Office. With regard to the spelling of Indian names it may be explained that there is as yet no normal standard or uniform spelling agreed upon as a convention. Accordingly the spelling followed throughout the text has been that of the Gazette-regardless of the fact that the Gazette is often inconsistent with itself. When a convention has been established it will be easy to remedy this blemish. But in the index the spelling of the place names has been made to conform to that fixed in the last edition of the India Office List. (6) The lists of the ORDER OF ST. MICHAEL AND ST. GEORGE are based upon the original records of the Order, in the main upon the Register. This beautifully kept record is preserved at the Colonial Office, and for access to it, as well as for the kindest assistance in handling it, I am indebted to Mr. C. H. Niblett, of the Colonial Office. Occasionally I have taken a brief statement of 'services from the periodical lists of knights which the Colonial Office has printed. But otherwise, the statements of services contained in the following lists are drawn from the express words of the warrant of appointment, as contained in the Register, or from the London Gazette. My collation of the register of this Order has destroyed the superstitious reverence which I once felt for the London Gazette. All Englishmen have been bred in the belief that questions of promotion and of precedence are decided entirely by the date of gazetting. It was a rude shock to this belief to find that for more than 50 years of the history of the Order of St. Michael and St. George the dates of the warrants of appointment, as contained in the Register, never agree with the dates of gazetting. In some cases there is a difference even of months. There can surely be no doubt that if the Gazette does not agree with the warrant of appointment, then the Gazette is wrong. The warrant of appointment is the decisive and final authority. So far as I have been able to trace this matter the superstition with regard to the London Gazette has originated in the War Office. As army promotions and decorations are so closely connected, it is very convenient to have a single rule applicable to both, and to count both the one and the other from the date of gazetting. But it is illogical and historically very confusing and deplorable that this rule which has been adopted by the War Office as a mere matter of convenience should, by implication, have been extended to other Orders quite differently circumstanced. There are two alternative methods which are possible in gazetting. The first is to gazette only the date of appointment—that is, to give to the Gazette notice the precise date of the warrant of appointment. The objection to this method is that it leaves undefined the status of the individual for the interim period between the time of his appointment and the time of his investiture. If a man is gazetted as a knight bachelor on the 9th November and is actually dubbed by the King on the 21st December what is his status during the period Nov. 9-Dec. 21? He is certainly not a knight bachelor. He is certainly only an esquire until the very moment that he is dubbed. Then how can he possibly rank for precedence as a knight bachelor from a date at which he is still only an esquire? Or again, take the case of a C. B. who is appointed a K.C.B. on the 24th June and is invested six months later. What is his status during those interim six months. The difficulty may be got over by a royal warrant (bearing even date with the warrant of appointment) containing a grant of the dignity and another royal warrant of same date granting him permission to wear the insignia and to enjoy the precedence of his new rank and the style and title of a knight bachelor of England. But this is a very cumbersome and clumsy way of getting round a perfectly simple difficulty, and it is only excusable if it is |