Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/526

Rh brought to the Grand Master an annual revenue of 15,000 thalers, while under Paul I. the revenues were even increased to 300,000 florins. At present, it is united with the Russian Priorates, and the whole is now divided into two Grand Priorates, for the Knights of the Greek and those of the Roman Catholic confession. The former now counts ninetyeight Commanders, while previously it had three hundred and ninety-three Commanders, and thirty-two Knights of the Grand Cross.

There are also Grand and small crosses for female members.

ORDER OF THE WHITE EAGLE.

In the time of Vladimir IV., one of the Princes of that period, when the nobility had already consolidated their own power, and the Kings found it, in consequence, advisable to introduce for the safety of their thrones an aristocracy in the ranks of the nobility, George Ossilinsky, Great Chancellor of the Republic (Poland), having inherited the Seignory of Teneczin, assumed the title of Count, which he thought was attached to his new estates. He, at the same time, solicited the Emperor and the Pope to bestow upon him the dignity of Prince, which he no sooner obtained, than he projected the foundation of a new Order, of 'the Immaculate Virgin,' and the statutes of which Pope Urban VIII. confirmed in 1634.

Public opinion was, however, against such innovations, and it was therefore an easy task for the more ancient family of the Radzivils to agitate the nobility against this act of presumption.

In 1638, the States passed a law, that every distinction and decoration should amount to an offence against the equality of Knighthood; and they accordingly issued a direct prohibition for any one to accept any foreign title, decoration, escutcheon,