INTRODUCTION.

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Round Table, 5 which he had revived in 1344 ; and the numberof twenty-four Companions, besides the King and the Princeof Wales, may have arisen from its being the number of thosewho tilted.

On the origin of the Garter itself, or on the Motto, no newlight can be thrown. Mr. Beltz has adopted the opinionof some other writers, namely, “ that the Garter may havebeen intended as an emblem of the tie or union of warlikequalities to be employed in the assertion of the Founder’sclaim to the French crown, and the motto as a retort of shameand defiance upon him who should think ill of the enterprise,or of those whom the King had chosen to be the instruments ofits accomplishment. The taste of that age for its allegoricalconceits, impresses, and devices, may reasonably warrant sucha conclusion.” 6 But as this theory depends entirely on thesupposition that the Order was founded before the invasion ofFrance, in July 1346, it cannot survive the proofs which havebeen adduced, that the Ensign and the Order were alikeunknown until towards the close of the year 1347.

A great variety of devices and mottos were used by Edwardthe Third: they were chosen from the most trivial causes, andwere of an amorous rather than of a military character. Nothingis more likely than that, in a crowded assembly, a lady 7 should

5 In the letter from Sir John Werchin, Seneschal of Hainanlt, to King Henry the Fourth,in 1408, he expressly states, that the Order of the Garter had been instituted instead of thatof the Round Table. — Vide Beltz’s Memorials, p. 403, and p. 51, postea.

6 Beltz’s Memorials, p. xlvii.

7 See p. 18, postea, for the supposed name of the Lady. Mr. Beltz (Memorials, p. xliii—xlvi.) supports his disbelief of the popular account of the origin of the Garter, by endeavour-ing to show that a Countess of Salisbury could not have been the heroine, because Wil-liam Earl of Salisbury, the husband of Katharine Countess of Salisbury, died of injuries