82

THE CORONATIONS OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER.

CHAP. 11.

knighthood, as an emblem of the cleanliness and purity of their future profession, they were called Knights of the Bath.'' The King himself bathed on the occasion with them. They were completely undressed, placed in large baths, and then wrapped in soft blankets.2 The distinctive name first appears in the time of Henry V. The ceremony had always taken place at Westminster; the bath in the Painted or Prince's Chamber, and the vigils either before the Confessor's Shrine, or (since the Reformation) in Henry VII.'s Chapel. Edward II. was thus knighted, at his father's coronation; and the crowd was so great that two knights were suffocated. Evelyn saw the bathing of the knights, preparatory to the coronation of Charles II., in the Painted Chamber.' The badge which they wore was emblematic of the sacredness of their Order— three garlands twisted together in honour of the Holy Trinity, and supposed to be derived from Arthur, founder of British chivalry. The motto--with a somewhat questionable orthodoxy

was, Tria numina juncta in uno.' The badge was altered in the reign of James I., who, by a no less audacious secularisation, left out numina, in order to leave the interpretation open for the junction in one' of the three kingdoms (tria regna) of England, Scotland, and Ireland." The Shamrock was added to the Rose and Thistle after the Union with Ireland, 1802.6

.1725.

It occurred to Sir Robert Walpole to reconstruct the Order, by the limitation of its members to persons of merit, and by the title, thus fitly earned, of the most honourable.' It is said that his main object was to provide himself with a means of resisting the constant applications for the Order of the Garter. As such he offered it to Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, for her grandson. 'No,' she said, 'nothing but the 'Garter.' Madam,' said Walpole, they who take the Bath 'will the sooner have the Garter.' 7

The first knight created under the new statutes was William

The most remarkable bath' ever taken by a knight, for this purpose. was that of the Tribune Rienzi in the porphyry font of Constantine, in the Baptistry of St. John Lateran. The words dub a knight' are said to be taken from the dip, 'doob,' in the bath.

2 Nichols's History of the Orders, iii. 341.

Brayley's Westminster, p. 97.

Diary, April 19, 1661.

Nichols, pp. 37, 38, 46.

Ibid. pp. 192, 194.

7 Nichols, p. 39.

Quoth King Robin, 'Our Ribbons,
I see, are too few-

Of St. Andrew's the Green, and St.
George's the Blue,

I must find out another of colour more

gay,

That will teach. all my subjects with pride to obey.'

(Swift's Works, xii. 369.)

Installations of the

Knights of the Bath.

Duke of Cumberland, son of the future King, George II. The
child-afterwards to grow up into the fierce champion of his
house-was but four years old, and was, by reason of his
'tender age,' excused from the bath. But he presented his
little sword at the altar; and the other knights were duly
bathed in the Prince's Chamber, and kept their vigil in Henry
VII.'s Chapel, where also the installation took place,
as has been the case ever since. The number of
knights (36) was fixed to correspond with the number
of the stalls in the Chapel. Every 20th of October-the anni-
versary of George I.'s coronation-a procession of the knights
was to take place to the Chapel, with a solemn service. On
occasion of an installation, they proceeded after the service,
in their scarlet robes and white plumes, to a banquet in the
Prince's Chamber. The royal cook stood at the door of the
Abbey, with his cleaver, threatening to strike off the spurs
from the heels of any knight who proved unworthy of his
knightly vows. The highest functionary was the Great Master,
an office first filled by Montagu, Earl of Halifax. In 1749
Lord Delamere asked the place for the Duke of Montagu, who
died in that year; and from that time-to prevent the recur-
rence of such a precedence-no Great Master has been
appointed, a Prince always acting on his behalf.3 Next to him
ranks the Dean of Westminster, as Dean of the Order. The
selection of a dean rather than a bishop arose from the circum-
stance that the statutes were framed on the model of those of
the Order of the Thistle, which, being established in Scotland
during the abeyance of Episcopacy, had no place for a prelate
amongst its officers. According to this Presbyterian scheme,
the Dean of Westminster was naturally chosen, both from his
position as the chief Presbyter in the Church of England, and
also from his connection with the Abbey in which the cere-
mony was to take place. It was his duty to receive the swords
of the knights, lay them on the altar (erected for the purpose),

'Nichols, pp. 47, 52.

2 The whole scene is represented in a picture, painted by Canaletti for Bishop Wilcocks, in 1747, now in the From Deanery. (See Chapter VI.)

this picture it would appear that on that occasion the procession came out by the west door. In 1803 (see Gent. Mag., lxxiii. pt. 1, p. 460), it entered and retired by Poets' Corner; and the cook accordingly stood, not (as in 1747)

at the west entrance, but at the South
Transept door. Each of the knights
'bowed to him, and touched their hats.

Some of them asked whether there
'were any fees to pay; to which he
'answered, he would do himself the
'honour to call upon them. We under-
'stand that he receives four guineas
'for this extraordinary speech.'

Nichols, p. 82.

and restore them to their owners with suitable admonitions. Under the altar were placed the banners of the deceased knights, during which ceremony the Dead March in Saul was played.'

The installations continued, at intervals more or less remote, till 1812, under the Regency, since which time they have ceased. In 1839 the Order underwent so extensive an enlargement and alteration, that no banners have since been added to those then hung in the Chapel.

donald's

One remarkable degradation and restitution has taken place. Earl Dundonald's banner was, after the charges of fraud brought against him in 1814, taken from its place, Lord Dunand ignominiously kicked down the steps of the banner. Chapel. After many vicissitudes, it was restored to the family upon his death; and in 1860, on the day of his funeral in the Abbey, by order of the Queen, was restored by the Herald of the Order to its ancient support. Underneath the vacant place of the shield an unknown admirer has rudely carved, in Spanish, 'Cochrane-Chili y Libertad viva!'

Coronation of George II.. Oct. 11,

32. We return to the ordinary routine of the royal C inaugurations.

1727.

The coronation of George II.2 was performed with all the pomp and magnificence that could be contrived; the present King differing so much from the last, that all the pageantry and splendour, badges and trappings of royalty, were as pleasing to the son as they were irksome to the father. The dress of the Queen on this occasion was as fine as the accumulated riches of the city and suburbs could make it; for besides her own jewels (which were a great number, and very valuable), she had on her head and on her shoulders, all the pearls she could borrow of the ladies of quality at one end of the town, and on her petticoat all the diamonds she could hire of the Jews and jewellers at the other; so that the appearance of her finery was a mixture of magnificence and meanness, not unlike the éclat of royalty in many other particulars when it comes to be really examined, and the sources traced to what money hires or flattery lends.3

Gent. Mag. ut supra.-In 1803 the Queen and Princesses sat in the Dean's Gallery, at the south-west corner of the Nave, and were afterwards entertained in the Deanery. The knights, in their passage round the Nave, halted and made obeisance to them, the trumpets sounding the whole time of the procession.

For a quarrel with the Dean on

this occasion, see Chapter Book, November 4, 1727. The Veni Creator' was omitted by mistake. (Lambeth Coronation Service.) Bishop Potter preached the sermon, on 2 Chron. ix. 8. (Calamy's Life, ii. 501.)

3 Lord Hervey, i. 88, 89.-This was caused by the loss of Queen Anne's jewels.

33. The coronation of George III.' is over,' says Horace Walpole,

Corona-
tion of
George III.
Sept. 22,

'Tis even a more gorgeous sight than I imagined. I saw the procession and the Hall; but the return was in the dark. In the morning they had forgot the sword of state, the chairs for King and Queen, and their canopies. They used the Lord Mayor's for the first, and made the last in the Hall: so 1761. they did not set forth till noon; and then, by a childish compliment to the King, reserved the illumination of the Hall till his entry, by which means they arrived like a funeral, nothing being discernible but the plumes of the Knights of the Bath, which seemed the hearse. . . . My Lady Townshend said she should be very glad to see a coronation, as she never had seen one. Why,' said I, Madam, you walked at the last?' 'Yes, child,' said she, 'but I saw nothing of it: I only looked to " see who looked at me." The Duchess of Queensberry walked! Her affectation that day was to do nothing preposterous. . . . For the coronation, if a puppet-show could be worth a million, that is. The multitudes, balconies, guards, and processions, made Palace Yard the liveliest spectacle in the worid: the Hall was the most glorious. The blaze of lights, the richness and variety of habits, the ceremonial, the benches of peers and peeresses, frequent and full, was as awful as a pageant can be; and yet for the King's sake and my own, I never wish to see another; nor am impatient to have my Lord Effingham's promise fulfilled. The King complained that so few precedents were kept for their proceedings. Lord Effingham owned, the Earl Marshal's office had been strangely neglected; but he had taken such care for the future, that the next coronation would be regulated in the most exact manuer imaginable. The number of peers and peeresses present was not very great; some of the latter, with no excuse in the world, appeared in Lord Lincoln's gallery, and even walked about the Hall indecently in the intervals of the procession. My Lady Harrington, covered with all the diamonds she could borrow, hire, or seize, and with the air of Roxana, was the finest figure at a distance; she complained to George Selwyn that she was to walk with Lady Portsmouth, who would have a wig, and a stick. Pho,' said he, you will only look as if you were taken up by the constable.' She told this everywhere, thinking the reflection was on my Lady Portsmouth. Lady Pembroke, alone at the head of the countesses, was the picture of majestic modesty; the Duchess of Richmond as pretty as nature and dress, with no pains of

It is noted, that whereas few gave half-a-guinea for places to see George II.'s coronation, and for an apartment forty guineas, in the time of George III. front seats along the line of pro

cession cost ten guineas, and a similar apartment three hundred and fifty. (Gent. Mag. 1821, pt. ii. p. 77. Walpole's Letters, iii. 445.)