Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 2.djvu/549

 APPENDIX B 533 The present writer is solely responsible for the order of succession adopted by the Editor of this volume, and should be regarded as the target for any hostile criticism which any demonstrable error therein may reasonably incur. What has been said above will account for the points of difference between his allocation of the vacancies to which knights succeeded and that found in the works of Beltz and Dr. Shaw. From the accession of Henry VIII in 1509 to the present time there is little room for difference of opinion, after the dates of death have been accurately discriminated, and it is evident that had Beltz not misdated some of them, his arrangement of the succession since the period named, to which Dr. Shaw has given the sanction of his high authority, would have been sub- stantially, and probably identically, the same as that which is adopted here. Accordingly the existing knights at the death of Henry VII are specifically noted in this list, and that date may be taken as a starting-point for a correct and trustworthy catalogue. The records for the half century immediately preceding 1509 are more unsatisfactory than those for the two last Lancastrian reigns, those for the time of Henry VII's Sovereignty of the Order in particular being so fragmentary as to render little assistance in determining the succession. It will be understood from the foregoing observations that in the following list 1. The numbers prefixed to the names of knights are adopted for con- venience of reference, but must not be assumed to be more than approxi- mately accurate. 2. For the period 1348- 1509 the dates of nomination to the Order, where not given with precision, can only be approximately, and not definitely, ascertained. 3. The succession is, subject to exceptions in a few cases of Princes of the Blood and foreign sovereigns (the latest of such being in the reign of Charles II), determined on the principle that a knight when elected succeeded to the vacancy of longest standing. Hence for the earlier years there are few variations from Beltz and Dr. Shaw. For the period since 1509, and in some earlier instances, where several vacancies were simul- taneously filled, these have been bracketed together. It has not been thought necessary to append the dates of death to those knights (forming a large majority of the later portion of the list), of whom, omitted to notice that such corrections involved also alterations in the allocation of the successors to the vacancies created by their deaths, Beltz's order being on a strictly chronological basis and therefore affected by every material error of date which occurs in it: Lord Cheyne (229) Earl of Sussex (372) Earl of Shrewsbury (234) Earl of Mar (397) Viscount Montagu (336) Earl of Kellie (410) Duke of Norfolk (340) Prince Maurice (443) Earl of Worcester (353) Duke of Albemarle (459) Earl of Derby (359) Elector of Saxony (501)