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INTRODUCTION.

accidentally have dropped her garter; that the circumstanceshould have caused a smile in the bystanders; and that, on itsbeing taken up by Edward, he should have reproved the levityof his courtiers by so happy and chivalrous an exclamation,placing the garter at the same time round his own knee, as“ Dishonoured be he who thinks ill of it.” Such a circum-stance occurring at a time of general festivity, when devices,mottos, and conceits of all kinds were adopted as ornaments orBadges of the Habits worn at Jousts and Tournaments, wouldnaturally have been commemorated, as other Royal expressionsseem to have been, by its conversion into a Device and Mottofor the dresses at an approaching hastilude.

A reasonable doubt cannot, it is presumed, now remain,that the illustrious Fraternity was intended to supersede theRound Table which Edward had revived; that it had no loftierimmediate origin than a Tournament or Hastilude; and thatits Name, Badge, and Motto, were derived from no noblersource than a fair Dame’s misfortune, and a chivalrous Mo-narch’s gallantry.

received “ at the jousts in January 1344, preceding the foundation of the Order.” Thefact that those jousts were held three years before that event, removes part of Mr. Beltz’sobjection; because the Earl’s widow might, of course, have been present at the festivities ofthe Court in 1347 and 1348, though her husband had died in 1344. Katherine Countessof Salisbury, was scarcely less, and was possibly much more, than forty years of age in 1348,and she died on the 23rd of April 1349. The incident in question might have occurredto the King’s cousin, Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, then nineteen years old, who was aboutthat time contracted or married to William Earl of Salisbury, one of the original Compa-nions. Their marriage was dissolved by a Papal Bull, dated 13th November 1349, becauseit was proved that she had previously married Sir Thomas Holand, K.G.; and she wasafterwards the wife of Edward the Black Prince, and mother of King Richard the Second.