Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/420

 404 therefore the firt dignity, after the nobility, is a knight of the order of St. George, or of the garter; firt intituted by Edward III, A. D. 1344 . Next follows a knight banneret; who indeed by tatutes 5 Ric. II. t. 2. c. 4. and 14 Ric. II. c. 11. is ranked next after barons: and that precedence was confirmed to him by order of king James I, in the tenth year of his reign. But, in order to intitle himelf to this rank, he mut have been created by the king in peron, in the field, under the royal banners, in time of open war. Ele he ranks after baronets; who are the next order: which title is a dignity of inheritance, created by letters patent, and uually decendible to the iue male. It was firt intituted by king James the firt, A. D. 1611. in order to raie a competent um for the reduction of the province of Ulter in Ireland; for which reaon all baronets have the arms of Ulter uperadded to their family coat. Next follow knights of the bath; an order intituted by king Henry IV, and revived by king George the firt. They are o called from the ceremony of bathing, the night before their creation. The lat of thee inferior nobility are knights bachelors; the mot antient, though the lowet, order of knighthood amongt us: for we have an intance of king Alfred's conferring this order on his on Atheltan. The cutom of the antient Germans was to give their young men a hield and a lance in the great council: this was equivalent to the toga virilis of the Romans: before this they were not permitted to bear arms, but were accounted as part of the father's houhold; after it, as part of the public. Hence ome derive the uage of knighting, which has prevailed all over the wetern world, ince it's reduction by colonies from thoe northern heroes. Knights are called in Latin equites aurati; aurati, from the gilt purs they wore; and equites, becaue they always erved on horeback: for it is obervable, that almot all nations call their knights by ome appellation derived from an hore. Rh