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tution which we are acquainted with is, that to avoid all difpute about precedency, he caufed a round table to be made for the celebration of their public feafts, from whence the order had its appellation. To this fociety he admitted not only Britons but Foreigners, if they were perfons of nobility, and renowned for their virtue and valour; thefe were indifpenfable qualifications. The place where this order was inftituted was Windfor, and the time of their convening Whitfuntide. In Winchefter Caftle there was a large round table, called and affirmed to be King Arthur's; or at least set up in the room of one more ancient which had been destroyed. It is not recorded that this order furvived its founder: it is more probable that it expired with him; most of thofe Knights who had been honoured with a place at his table perishing by his fide in the battle of Kamblan, now Camelsford, in Cornwall, where, though he killed his enemy Mordred, yet he fell himself.

King

King Edward, to whom the heroic virtues and military spirit of Arthur feems to have defcended, being engaged in continual wars with France, made ufe of the fame method his warlike predeceffor had done, to bring to his court all the valiant Knights of the age to this purpose, as early as the year 1344, the eighteenth of his reign, he formed the design of restoring King Arthur's round table; he accordingly iffued out orders for the fafe conduct of foreign Knights, to try their fkill at folemn jufts to be held near Windfor. At the time appointed great numbers of accomplished Cavaliers came to his court, whom the King entertained with great hofpitality, and endeavoured to attach to his intereft by every act of cour tefy; but perceiving that after their departure, being unconstrained and at liberty, fome of them entered into the fervice, of his adverfary in the enfuing wars, he refolved to project fome means to fecure thofe whom he thought fit to make his affociates, by more felect and lafting bonds.

2

To this

purpose

purpose he inftituted the order of the Garter, which, if we confider its antiquity, and the dignity, of the perfonages who have been enrolled therein, greatly excells every other honorary institution,

From whence it derives its denomination of the Garter is at this time uncertain: the vulgar and general opinion is, that the Countess of Salisbury dropping accidently her garter as the danced at a ball, King Edward ftooping, took it from the ground; whereupon, feeing fome of his Nobles fmile, he turned it off with this reply in French, "Honi foit qui mal y penfe-Shame be to "him that evil thinks of it:" but in retort for their laughter he further added, "That

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fhortly they fhould fee that garter ad"vanced to fo high an honour, as to ac"count themselves happy in wearing it.”

Upon examination of this tradition there appears very little reason to give it credit; for Sir John Froiffart, the only cotem

porary

porary writer that treats of this inftitution, affigns it no fuch origin; nor is there any thing mentioned to that purpofe by any of the English Historians for two hundred years after. Polydore Virgil was the first who took occafion to fay fomething of it, but without ascertaining to whom the garter belonged; cautiously declining to pronounce whether it was the King's Mistress's or the Queen's. Befides, in the original statutes of the order, there is not the leaft conjecture to countenance fuch a conceit; and the ingenious Doctor Heylin treats this incident as a mere fable: these are his words ;

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take it to be a vain and idle romance, derogatory both to the founder and the "order, first published by Polydore Virgil, "a ftranger to the affairs of England, and

by him taken on no better ground than "the tradition of the common people; "too trifling a foundation for fo great a " building."

Of

Of the fame contexture as the former is another tradition in Andrew du Chefne;

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"That the Queen departing from the King to her own apartments, and he following foon after, chanced to efpy a blue garter lying on the ground; whilst some "of his attendants carelessly paffed it by, "as difdaining to ftoop for fuch a trifle: "the King knowing the owner, com"manded it to be given him; at the re"ceipt of which he faid, You make but "fmall account of this garter; but within 66 a few months I will cause the best of you "to reverence it." Some fuppofe that the motto was the Queen's anfwer, when the King asked her what men would conjecture upon her lofing her garter in fuch a

manner.

Both relations are probably far diftant from the fact, and an amorous instead of an honourable account has been falfely rendered of this inftitution. It has thus fared with other orders of fovereign foundation;

as

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