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HISTORY OF THE

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Scotland, and on his Great Seal, as well as on that of King Charles the Second,the Royal Arms are encircled with a Collar of a similar pattern to the oneround the Arms of King James the First. 4

The preceding statements shew that a Collar, composed partly ofThistles, was worn by King James the Fifth of Scotland; that a similarCollar, to which the Cross or Effigy of Saint Andrew was attached, was placedround His Achievements, and those of Queen Mary ; 5 of her son, King Jamesthe Sixth, and of all the succeeding Scottish Monarchs; but there is no evidencethat either the Collar or the Badge was worn by any Sovereign after KingJames the Fifth, except King James the Sixth, until the Revival, as it wastermed, of the Order, by King James the Seventh in 1687.

The important question is, however, whether the Order 6 7 did exist asa Brotherhood or Fraternity, having a Sovereign, with a succession of Knights,governed by established Rules, and wearing certain Ensigns, like the otherOrders of Knighthood in Europe, before the year 1687 ? It can scarcely benecessary to observe, that the circumstance of the Kings of Scotland havingworn a particular Collar does not prove that it was the Insignia of an Order ofKnighthood; and they may even have bestowed the Decoration upon their sub-jects, without thereby rendering them Members of a Chivalrous Fraternity. Sofar as has yet been discovered, there is no evidence of a conclusive or satisfactorynature, that before the reign of King James the Seventh any person eitherreceived the Collar from his Sovereign, or was styled a Knight of the Order of

4 Anderson, ut supra.

5 In the portraits of her husband, Henry Lord Darnley, he is depicted with the Collar of SaintMichael only.

6 Whatever may have been the date of the Institution of the Order of the Thistle in Scotland,Favine, in his “ Theater of Honour,” lib. 3. c. 12. states (but without citing any authority) that atthe marriage of Louis the Second, Duke of Bourbon, with Ann, daughter of the Count Daulphine ofAuvergne et Arde, on New Year’s Day in 1370, the Duke founded the Order of Knights of ourLady, otherwise called the Thistle. The number of the Knights, like those of the Garter, is saidto have been Twenty-Six: the Thistle formed part of their Insignia, and their Motto was “ Esperance.”See also Ashmole, pp. 110, 111; but he merely follows Favine.

7 The only statements in favour of the existence of the Order in the fifteenth and sixteenthcenturies deserving of notice, are those of Nisbet (vide the Appendix), that Sir James Balfoursays, in his Peerage, he had seen a Charter about the reign of King James III. of the lands of Roslin,in Lothianshire, given by William Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, to his second son, Oliver Sinclair, whereinhe styled himself “ Willielmus de Sancto Claro, Dux de Oldenburgh, Comes Orcadise et Cathani-ensiae, Dominus de Zitland, Newburgh, Sinclair, Dysert, Rosslin, Mussilburgh, &c. limitum orientaliumet occidentalium Scotiae prefectus, Baro de Ecford et Cavertoun, Magnus Camerarius et AdmiralusScotiae, et Nobilissimorum Cardui , St. Michaelis, et Aurei Velleris, Eques;”— that he (Nisbet) had