INTRODUCTION.

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Knighted. By applying this argument to the original Com-panions, it will be manifest that some of them were not electeduntil after July 1346, so that it is impossible that the firstFeast of the Order could, as Froissart asserts, and as Mr. Beltzbelieves, have been held on Saint George’s day in 1344. 9

both Murimuth and Stowe say, that the persons who then received that distinction wereKnighted by the King, while Holinshed merely observes that “ twenty Knights weremade.”

The idea that instead of being only Knighted in July 1346, the Prince of Walesmight have been made a Banneret, seems equally unfounded. The rank of Knight wasquite distinct from that of Banneret; and the aid due to the Crown was on making the King'seldest son a Knight, and not a Banneret. Moreover, the degree of Banneret was never con-ferred on a person above the rank of Baron; and a Prince of Wales would no more havebeen created a Banneret in 1346, than a Baronet in 1841. All authorities define a Banneretto be “ the last among the greatest, viz. nobilium majorum , or the first within those of thesecond rank, and is placed in the middle between the Barons and the other Knights .” (Videpp. xxxii.—xliii. antea). In the Memoir of the Prince of Wales, Mr. Beltz has, however,abandoned the theory of the Prince’s having been twice Knighted or made a Banneret; buthe there considers that he was elected into the Order of the Garter before he was Knighted.After saying, that “ although the Prince was included amongst the Founders” in 1344, heobserves that, “ the honour of Knighthood was reserved for the moment when he should bearmed and thereby qualified to enter upon his warlike course. This occasion presenteditself when, accompanying the King on his memorable expedition against France, he landedat La Hogue on the 12th of July 1346.” (Memorials, p. 13.)

Nor is it more likely that the Earls of Salisbury and March were made Bannerets in1346, than that the Prince of Wales should have been so created. Both were by birthentitled to a much higher rank; and both were too young to have obtained a station whichrequired great military experience. In his memoirs of those noblemen, Mr. Beltz merelysays, that the Earl of Salisbury “ received Knighthood, if not the degree of Banneret,upon landing at La Hogueand of the Earl of March that he was one of the Founders ofthe Garter in 1344, “ and having, two years afterwards, in 1346, attended the King andthe Prince of Wales on their brilliant expedition into France, he is said to have receivedKnighthood upon their landing at La Hogue, either from the hands of the Sovereign or thoseof the young Prince, immediately after his own investiture with that dignity,” (pp. 37, 40.)Neither the time of Sir Henry Eam’s Knighthood, nor the omission of the title of “ Knight”to the name of Sir Hugh Courtenay, or of Sir Bartholomew Burghersh, in records of 1346and 1347, are noticed by Mr. Beltz in his account of the institution of the Order; andthe inconsistency of the above extracts with each other, and with the fact that all the«. k