Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/527

240 or any marks whatsoever of honour, declaring at the same time all titles as null and void, except those which the Union of Lublin 'had in 1569 conferred on the Princes of Lithuania and Russia. The consequence was, that the new Order of Ossilinsky was soon condemned to extinction, while those who were already in possession of the decoration, dared no longer wear it in public.

In 1703, when Augustus II. was obliged to flee from the Polish provinces, which were then occupied by the Swedes, he distributed amongst a number of high personages who had remained true to him, a medal appended to a narrow blue ribbon, and which bore on the obverse a white eagle, with the legend: ' Pro Fide, Rege, Lege' (For Religion, King and Law), and on the reverse, the initials, 'A. R.'

The real foundation or rather constitution of the Order, however, only dates from the year 1713.

To obviate the necessity of repealing the prohibitive law of innovation, it was alleged that the new Order was only the revived one of the 'Immaculate Virgin,' which was supposed to have been founded as early as 1325, by Wladislaw the Short, on the occasion of the marriage of his son Casimir with Ann, a Princess of Lithuania.

The decoration, not unlike that of the Maltese Cross, consisted of a cross containing upon its face the White Eagle with expanded wings, and gold flames in the corners. It was worn suspended by a light blue ribbon. The King was to receive it with the crown as Grand Master. The number of the Knights (divided into four classes) was limited to seventy-two. During the reigns of the Saxon Kings, however, the party opposed to the Order, was yet too strong to be trifled with, and the Kings dared not accept the decoration at their public coronation, without defying public opinion, and the strong party of the ancient nobility; the decoration was indeed more seen abroad