INTRODUCTION.

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deserveth, for which I assure your Grace I have no small suit,and yet nevertheless, always according to my most boundenduty, I would not enterprise to doings thereof, unto the timeI knew further of your most gracious pleasure. Most humblybeseeching your Highness thereof, seeing it is the thing thatshall touch most my power, honesty, and also the encouragingthe hearts of gentlemen to serve me the better underneath yourgracious Highness.” 1 This letter shews that the power of con-ferring Knighthood was then still supposed to be incidental tocertain high Officers of the Crown; but authority to conferKnighthood was sometimes expressly granted to the Com-mander of an army, by King Henry the Eighth; 2 and SirThomas Smith states, that “ Knights are made either by theKing himself, or by his Commission and Royal authority, givenfor the same purpose; or by his Lieutenant in the wars, whohath his Royal and absolute power committed to him for thetime.” 3 Queen Elizabeth (the most tenacious of her preroga-tive of all English Sovereigns) nevertheless permitted severalof her subjects to confer Knighthood; and many persons wereKnighted in 1559 at Berwick, by the Duke of Norfolk; bythe Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Sussex between 1564 and1571; by Sir Henry Sidney in 1583 ; 4 and by the Earl of Essexas Commander of the Expedition to Cadiz in 1596, though theprofuse manner in which that nobleman bestowed the honour

1 State Papers, vol. IV. p. 629.

2 In 1543 Sir John Wallop, Captain of Guisnes, was appointed by Letters Patent,Commander of the Forces sent to aid the Emperor, whereby power of inflicting capitalpunishment was given to him; “ Ac etiam milites bene meritos Insigniis et Honore Militarisi ita visum fuerit donandi, et gradu ac titulo Ordinis Equestris condecorandi.” Rot. Patent.35 Hen. VIII. p. 1C, m. 24.

3 De Republiea Anglorum, ed. 1584, p. 22.

4 Harleian MSS. 6063, f. 23 et seq.