( 3^7 )CAP. XV

fk IriVefliture of Strangers, with theHabit and Enfigns of the Order.

fht Time for fending the Habit and Enfigns un~limitted.

T Hough the Statutes of the Order appoint andprefix a time, wherein the Sovereign's Letters ofnotice to an eied Knight ought to be fenr, yetas to the fending a folemn Embalfy with the Habit andEnfigns, they do not limit any certain time, but leave itwholly to the Sovereign’s Pleafure, wherein his own In-tereft and Conveniency, as well as that of the eleEl Stran-ger, is to be confidered.

Neverthelefs, the Statutes of Inftitution dired, thatthis Legation fhall be difpatched with convenient ipeed ;which mull be interpreted to refer both to the Sovereign’sconveniency of fending, and the Stranger s capacity of re-ceiving .

And therefore we find it fix Years after the Eledion ofthe Kings of Arragon and Poland, and the Duke of Brunf-e’er we meet with the firft notice of the Sovereign’sdetermination of fending over the Habit: For they havingbeen eleded 4 Augujf, 28 Hen. VI. the preparations forthe Legation were not made till the thirty fourth Yearof the lame King ; and doubtlefs fome caufe, within the'limits of that conveniency al owed to the Sovereign bythe aforefaid Article of the Statutes, or the accident ofMifcarriage might fall out ; particularly in refpect to theKing of Poland, becaufe three Years after the formerOrder of Legation, we find new Directions iffued forfending the Enfigns of the Order to him.

But in King Henry Vlllth’s Body of Statutes, this Claufeof fending the Legation with convenient fpeed, is whollyomitted, and the Sovereign is not limitted as to theTime ; fo that the Habit and Enfigns have happen’d tobo fent fometimes fooner, fomecimes later; as the So-vereign

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