ORDER OF THE BATH

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1640, 12 May 1925, Page 2

ORDER OF THE BATH

The Most Honourable'Order of the Bath has just reached the accredited age of two hundred years. It is recordr ed by the contemporary chronicler that in 1725 George I "re-established the Degree of Knighthood of the Bath and erected the same into a regular Military Order for ever, by the Name and Title of the Order of the Bath, and appointed John Duke of Montague to be the first 'Grand Master of the Order; and his Majesty being in his Closet, conferred the Honour of this Order of Knighthood on his Highness Prince William and put the red Ribbon having the Badge or Symbol of the Order over his Shoulder." Thereafter there was an installation with all pomp and ceremony in the "Abbey Church of Westminster," attended by "the Drums of His Majesty's Household, a Kettledrum and His Majesty's Trumpets, and 12 Alms-men of the Church," to do honour to the Knights Companions, who were "all habited in their Mantles and Surcoats and each carrying in his hand the white Hat adorned with the Plume of White Feathers." Mantles and surcoats were red lined with white, and the Knights wore white gloves "with Tassels of Silk and Gold/' and upon their left shoulders their mantles were "adorned with the Ensign of the Order, being three Imperial Crowns or surrounded with the antient motto of this Knighthood Tria uncta in Uno wrought upon a Circle Gules, with a Glory or Rays issuing from, the Center."

'Nearly a hundred years later, in 1815, the Order was instituted in three classes "to commemorate the auspicious termination of the long and arduous contest in which the Empire has been engaged." Thirty years after, Queen Victoria added Civil Companions and Knight Command»r«.

Such (says the Daily Telegraph) the certain history of an Order which ranks fourth in England, after the Garter, the Thistle, and St. Patrick, and compared with the Orders of ancient fame, sucl! as the Garter or the Golden Fleece or the vanished Saint Esprit, would be a modern creation. But we read of Knights of the Bath in books much older than 1725, and they ranked before the Knights Bachelors. The tradition is that the Order was founded by Henry IV of his Coronation in 1399, with 40 new Knights, among them Harry of Monmouth and Agincourt and his other sons. What seems established is that from century to century men who were knighted on great occasions with elaborate ceremony were called Knights of the Bath, as initiated and enrolled into the ancient dignity of chivalry and under peculiar obligations of loyalty. For the rite of the Bath was of especial significance in the creation of a knight. While the candidate sat in his bath, thus actually and symbolically purifying himself, two "ancient and grave knights" informed, instructed, and counselled him touching the order and feats of chivalry, after which they poured water over him and made the sign of the Cross on his left shoulder, signifying that he was a proper person and fit to receive knightjhood. The Order of the Bath, in fact, commemorates the highest ideals of purity, service, and loyalty in the code of chivalry.