1841 relative to Supporters and other Exterior Heraldic Ornaments,

'This is to certify that in terms of a minute passed in Committee on the 5th of June last the Arms of the said noble Baronet have been duly registered in the Books of the Committee with the Insignia of right incidental to Baronetage and Knightly Dignity and as exemplified upon the margin are as follows:

'Coat.........

'Supporters. Two Equites Aurati proper.

'Crest......

'Motto.......

'Coronet, Mantle, Helmet, Collar of S.S., Badge and Wreath as blazoned in the Atchievement.

'Given under the Seal of the Order this day of 184 '(Signed) R. BROUN, Eq. Aur., 'Hon. Secretary and Registrar.'

SEAL

At a Meeting of the Committee held on the 10th May 1842, Sir Henry Mervyn Vavasour, Baronet, in the chair, the Committee took into consideration a Memorial from Mr. Broun relative to his application to the Lord Chamberlain to present him to the Queen for inauguration as a Knight. The result of this application, and the consequent proceedings at the Annual Meeting on the 4th June following, when Mr. Broun formally took upon himself knighthood, have already been narrated in the previous chapter.

At a Meeting of the Committee held on the 20th June 1842, letters were read from Members who had been absent

from the Meeting of the 4th, offering to the Honorary Secretary their congratulations on the manner in which he had been called upon to assert his natitial dignity; and in consequence of suggestions to that effect from various quarters, a resolution was passed to the following effect:

'That a Testimonial, comprising the insignia appertaining to the degree of Eques Auratus, should be presented to Sir Richard Broun on the occasion of his taking up his Knighthood under the requisition of a General Meeting, as a pledge of their approbation of his conduct, and their determination to revive all the rights and ornaments belonging to that ancient equestrian honor.'

A number of Baronets were appointed Trustees, and empowered to take whatever steps were necessary to carry this resolution into effect.

As a result, the so-styled Sir Richard Broun, at a Meeting on the 27th May 1843, was presented with a Testimonial which comprised a golden Collar of S.S., a Sword, Ring, Spurs, etc.

It is exceedingly doubtful whether the Collar of S.S. ought to have been included in the insignia of Knighthood, as it is by no means clear whether this Collar has ever, at any time, had any connection with Knighthood.

Its origin is at the present time unknown, and the number of attempts to solve the enigma has caused it to be described by Mr. Albert Hartshorne, who wrote a very able article on it in The Archeological Journal, vol. xxxix., the crux antiquariorum.

Its meaning has been variously explained as derived from -(1) St. Simplicius, (2) Salisbury (Countess of), (3) Soissons

(Martyrs of), (4) Silentium, (5) Societas, (6) Souvenez, (7) Souverayne, (8) Seneschallus, (9) Sanctus.

Mr. Hartshorne considers that the testimony for the first six is very dubious, while there is more or less indirect evidence in support of the other three. There is a good deal to be said in favour of 'Seneschallus,' for John of Gaunt was Seneschal, or High Steward of England, and the employment of the Collar of S.S. as the 'Livery' of the great Lancastrian party during the reigns of Henry IV., Henry v., and Henry vi. is a matter of history.

The earliest pictorial example noticed is a drawing in the British Museum by Nicholas Charles, Lancaster Herald, from a window of old St. Paul's, of the arms of Timehonoured Lancaster,' within a Collar of S.S. of the early form, namely, a buckling-strap with S's upon it at intervals.

The earliest sculptured example appears to be that represented on the effigy of Sir John Swinford, who died in 1371. Now, even if it could be shown that this effigy was sculptured many years after his death, Mr. Hartshorne points out that the fact still remains that this Knight was entitled to wear a Collar of S.S., and it consequently follows that this decoration was an established collar of livery when Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, was yet a boy, since he was not born until 1360. This would seem at once to dispose of the favourite conjecture that the collar was first devised by Henry IV., when he was Earl of Derby, in allusion to his motto, 'Souverayne.'

In support of 'Sanctus,' it may be urged that Church vestments were frequently powdered with S's for Sanctus.

Mr. J. G. Nichol, in an article in Notes and Queries, is in favour of the theory that the S is derived from Seneschallus. It still forms part of the official dress of the Lord Chief-Justice of England, and the Lord Mayor of London, which is also in favour of the assumption that it was originally a livery collar of a high functionary.

At the same time, an Act passed in 1532-33, being 24 Henry VIII. c. 13, enacts That no manne, onelesse he be a knight. weare any coler of golde named a coler of S.' And in a Chaucer, printed in 1598, occurs 'lyeth buried . . . with his image lying over him . a collar of esses gold about his necke. . . being the ornament of a knight.'

These two references, however, must not be taken as proving anything-the writers in both may have been mistaken: many writers have ignorantly assumed that the collar of the Order of the Garter is a Collar of S.S., which it certainly is not, any more than are the Collars of the other Orders of Knighthood. Should it be decided later to accord a Collar to the Baronets, a special one should be designed.

In the chapter dealing with the early history of the Baronetage of Scotland and Nova Scotia, the narrative was carried down to 1709, two years after the Union. A succession of historical events occurred to cause their rights to fall into a state of desuetude. These events were the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, the revolt of the United States of America in 1776, and the French Revolution, with the long Continental wars following.

In 1691 the territories and colonies known by the name of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, the Colony of New

Plymouth, the Province of Maine, and Nova Scotia, were, in terms of a charter known as the Massachusetts Charter, united and incorporated, and a tract of land within was assigned to some Protestants from Ireland and the Palatinate.

This led the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay to claim. not only a right to the government, but also to the territory, although up to this time they had neglected this particular tract of land. In consequence of this claim, a case was submitted, in August 1731, to the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General, asking for their opinion on the following points:

1. Whether the pursuers, if they ever had any right to the tract claimed, had not by their neglect, and even refusal to defend, take care of, and improve the same, forfeited their said right to the government, and what right they had under the charter, and now have, to the lands?

2. Whether by the said tract being conquered by the French, and afterwards re-conquered by General Nicholson in the late Queen's time, and yielded up by France to Great Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht, that part of the charter relating thereto became vacated? And whether the government of that tract, and the lands thereof, are not absolutely re-vested in the Crown; and whether the Crown has not thereby a sufficient power to appoint governments, and assign lands to such families as shall desire to settle there?

To these questions the law officers of the Crown replied that they were of opinion the pursuers had not been guilty of any laches of a kind to create a forfeiture of the rights conveyed by their charter; that the country not having