INTRODUCTION.

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1347 and 1348, the favourite Device was a blue Garter, withanother of the King’s Mottos, namely, “ IDonp soit qe mal g pense.”

These facts tend greatly to dissipate the obscurity in whichthe origin of the Order has so long remained. It appears fromthem that early in 1344 King Edward the Third instituted aKnightly Fraternity by reviving the Feast of the Round Tableat Windsor; that another similar Association, both of whichwere to meet annually, then existed in Lincolnshire; and thathastiludes and jousts were frequently held, at which uniformhabits, devices, and mottos, were worn, but that on none ofthose occasions, nor at the Feast of the Round Table, in 1344,is there the slightest reason for supposing that Garters, or thepeculiar Motto, were used, or that the Feast of Saint Georgewas particularly observed. Nothing is recorded of the Feast ofthe Round Table, or of the Assembly at Lincoln, in 1345; andthe invasion of France renders it extremely unlikely that theyshould have been held in 1346, while the absence from Englandof the King, and of most of the Peers and Knights, until latein 1347, proves that they could not have taken place in thatyear. After King Edward’s return in October 1347, no morewas heard of the Round Table at Windsor, or of the annualmeeting of Knights at Lincoln; but an entirely new Fraternitywas created, which seems, even if it were not intended, tohave superseded both the others.

Tradition, an uncertain indeed, but never altogether anunsafe authority, would fully explain the origin of the extra-ordinary Badge and Motto which adorned the habit of theSovereign, and of several Knights at hastiludes held in 1347and 1348; and there is positive evidence that, in the latteryear, a new Fraternity, consisting of the Sovereign, his eldest