PREFACE.

v

ferred by the Sovereign, was no where to be found; neither inany printed volume, nor, in some cases, in the Archives of theDepartments where it was naturally to have been expectedthat they would have been preserved, and even with so muchaccuracy and care, as to have required no other labour thanmere transcription.

Such was the state of the materials, so far as they existedin a collected shape, for a History of the Orders of Knight-hood and similar Institutions of this Country, when the presentWork was undertaken; and it is therefore evident, that fora General History, not only must the facts that had alreadybeen published, respecting the Garter, the Bath, and theThistle be entirely re-cast, but that none of those facts relatedto periods within a century and a half of the present time, inthe one case, or within a century in the others; while for aHistory of the other Orders, and of the Naval and MilitaryMedals, Clasps, and Crosses, almost every thing had to beboth ascertained and written.

But extensive and valuable as is the information affordedby Ashmole and Anstis, it was necessary to add to it, what-ever subsequent discoveries among the Public Records mighthave brought to light; and also to institute inquiries amongthat great depository of antiquarian knowledge, the manu-scripts in the British Museum. A still more obvious source,were the Registers, and other records, of the Orders them-selves ; but, as will hereafter be observed, access to the Re-gisters of the Order of the Garter was refused: there is noearly or complete Register of the Order of the Bath : and