INTRODUCTION.

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possessed of Hereditary Honours 1 is larger than of those whowear Distinctions given by their own Sovereign, and very muchgreater than the Members of the Orders of Knighthood.

In the Statutes of the Orders of the Garter, the Thistle,the Bath, and Saint Patrick, essential alterations are necessaryto render them consistent with the actual state of those Institu-tions. As the original Statutes of the Garter are adaptedneither to the religion nor to the customs of the present age,they have been changed or modified by no less than forty-sixadditional Ordinances. The Statutes of the Thistle are ex-tremely imperfect, while those of Saint Patrick, though com-piled so recently as in 1783, were formed, as nearly as possible,upon the Statutes of the Garter and Bath, and thus containmany enactments suited only to former ages.

The Statutes of the Order of the Bath, as has beenalready said, command things to be done, which howeverproper in the thirteenth, could not possibly be performed inthe nineteenth century. But though that Order was placedon an entirely new foundation in 1815, not one of the necessarylegal Instruments has yet been executed. Nor is there asingle regulation for the government of the Order, in its presentcondition; and the two additional Classes of “ Knights Com-manders” and “ Companions” are not even mentioned in theStatutes. Although twice the subject of Debate in the Houseof Commons, no measures have yet been carried into effectto establish the Order, legally and efficiently; nor to abolishthose Fees, which were justly described by a Minister of the

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1 A large proportion of the Titles borne in England have no legal existence, beingderived only from courtesy, in the instance of the sons and daughters of Peers.

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