Ladies were first admitted as full members of the Order of the Garter in 1987, almost 540 years after the founding of the Order. The 1987 Statute effecting this change first refers to an earlier statute of 1954, which states that the Order comprises the Sovereign and twenty-five Knights Companion and “certain others” (additional royal members and hereditary rulers of other states). The new Statute then adds:

And whereas We the Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter are desirous of evincing in a fitting manner Our abiding sense of the virtues and worth of Ladies of eminence known to Us by making such of them as We are pleased to choose and select to be Companions of Our said Most Noble Order Now therefore in order the better to effect Our said purpose and by virtue of the power inherent in Us as Sovereign of Our said   Most Noble Order We do ordain and declare that henceforth the Companions of Our said Most Noble Order shall be those of Our Subjects both Knights and Ladies as We or Our Successors are pleased to declare to be Knights Companions or Ladies Companions …

The Statute goes on to state that a female Companion of the Order will have the title “Lady” and the designation “L.G.” after her name.

Prior to 1987, female dignitaries could be admitted as ‘Ladies of the Garter’ In 1901, when King Edward VII revived the custom of appointing Ladies of the Garter and conferred the honour on Queen Alexandra, she was allocated a stall over which her banner was set up.  Nine other Ladies of the Garter followed, the most recent being the present Queen’s cousin, Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy (2003). However, these Ladies were not true Companions of the Order and do not have stall plates affixed to the stalls they occupied in St George’s Chapel. In contrast, the three Ladies Companion admitted since the 1987 Statute – Lavinia, Duchess of Norfolk (1990), Baroness Thatcher (1995) and Lady Soames (2005) – all have stall plates in the Quire.

Jill Hume (Archives Volunteer)

“How happy will a Lady be,
To have a little Baronet, to dandle on her knee.” 

Eccentric. This is how Sir John Dineley is described in his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Looking at his background, it is perhaps not difficult to see why!

His father Samuel had had a falling out with his elder brother, third baronet, causing him to threaten Samuel with disinheritance. To prevent this from happening, Samuel arranged for his brother to be kidnapped and strangled, thus ensuring that he would inherit the title. However, the plan did not quite work out as planned; Samuel was arrested for fratricide and hanged for the crime on 15 April 1741. Sir John would have been around 12 years old.

In 1761, Sir John became the fifth baronet after the death of his elder brother Edward, who died aged only 32. John seems to have set about spending the family fortune, with the Gentleman’s Magazine describing him as “a man of eccentric character, who chose to dissipate the competent fortune which he inherited”. In 1770 he was forced to sell the family home at Burhope. Eventually, after years of living in destitution and through the intervention of his friends, he was offered the place of a Poor Knight of Windsor, being admitted on the 16 April 1798.

He became a well-known figure around the Castle of Windsor, on account of his dress and demeanour. Landless and penniless, he became renowned across the country for his desperate search for a wealthy wife to bring him the status he felt he deserved. Using the last of his savings to display himself to best effect at the places where ladies congregated, according to one writer in the Penny Magazine, “He had a wonderful discrimination in avoiding the twittering girls, with whose faces he was familiar. But perchance some buxom matron or timid maiden, who had seen him for the first time, gazed upon the apparition with surprise and curiosity. In that case he would approach. With the air of one bred in courts, he made his most profound bow, and, taking a piece of paper from his pocket, he presented it, and withdrew’ doubtless watching the effect it produced.”

In the Archives is a signed copy of one of these marriage advertisements from 1799 [SGC F.67], in which he asks ladies to consider marrying him. He specifies the sums he expects his wife to bring to the union, and these vary depending upon the age of the lady in question, with Sir John prepared to accept less money for a younger wife. In return for their money, his wife would be able to call themselves Lady.

Sadly, no-one took up his offer and he died aged 80, a bachelor still, on 18 October 1809. He was buried at St George’s Chapel and the baronetcy became extinct.

Eleanor Cracknell (Assistant Archivist)

Banners in the Quire, with the Chrysanthemum of Hirohito 3rd on the left, after its restoration in 1971

When Edward III founded the Order of the Garter, the oldest surviving order of chivalry in the world, in or about 1348, there is evidence to suggest that he originally intended it to comprise twenty-four Knights. However, by 1349/50 membership of the Order became fixed at twenty-six:  the Monarch and twenty-five Knights appointed by him as his Companions. This number remained unchanged until 1786, when King George III brought in a new category of ‘Supernumerary’ membership to enable his sons (he had nine) and those of his successors to be appointed Garter Knights in addition to the twenty-six.

Amongst the original Founder Knights were some who owed their allegiance to Edward as Lord of Gascony rather than as King of England. They became known as Stranger Knights, to distinguish them from the Subject Knights who were direct subjects of the English Crown. Over the years additional foreign magnates were appointed Stranger Knights in line with the growing prestige of the Order. Until 1813, they formed part of the Companionship of twenty-six. However, in that year George III, wishing to install Alexander I of Russia as an additional Garter Knight, declared that all Stranger Knights should be henceforth classed as Supernumerary.   Since no limit was set on the number of Supernumerary Knights appointed at any one time, George III and his successors could reward and honour as many overseas princes and rulers as they chose. Between 1435 and 2001 one hundred and four Stranger Knights were elected to the Order (whose total membership from 1348 to date has been one thousand and one).  Not all installations took place in person at St George’s Chapel – some were undertaken in England by proxy or were celebrated abroad in the presence of Garter officials.

Sadly Supernumeraries, and indeed any Knight or Lady Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, may be degraded for various reasons. During the First World War, Monarchs of enemy nations, such as Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, had their membership revoked. One of four Japanese Stranger Knights, Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989) had his Garter banner removed from St Georges’ Chapel in 1941, when his allegiance was questioned after Japan joined the Second World War. However, it is also possible for Companions to be restored to the Order, and Emperor Hirohito welcomed his reinstatement by Elizabeth II and the restoration of his banner to the Chapel in 1971. The three other Japanese Stranger Knights elected to the Order of the Garter were Emperors Mutsuhito (installed in 1906 in recognition of the Anglo-Japanese alliance), Yoshihito (installed in 1912) and Akihito (in 1998).

Stefanos Koutroumanidis (Archives volunteer)

King Henry VI was born at Windsor on 6 December 1421 and succeeded to the throne at the age of nine months as King of England.   Henry was crowned 6 November 1429 at Westminster Abbey a month before his eighth birthday.  He was imprisoned and died in the Tower of London on 21 May 1471.   His body was taken to Chertsey Abbey for burial.

In the Treasurers’ accounts of the College of St George for 1483-84 an entry refers to the payment of £5 10s 2d ‘for expenses about the removal of King Henry VI from Chertsey’.   According to the contemporary account of John Rous, ‘the King’s body was taken out of his grave in the abbey church of Chertsey in August 1484, and honourably received in the new collegiate church of the Castle at Windsor where it was again buried with the greatest solemnity to the south of the high alter’.

The tomb of Henry VI became the object of veneration and the scene of miracles of healing attracted many pilgrims.  Miracles attributed to the King included those connected with one of his treasured relics – an old hat – the King’s Medicine against Headache.   Relics were kept at Windsor until the Reformation.  The metal collecting box for alms still stands beside the tomb.

On 4th November 1910 a formal investigation was made to establish exactly where King Henry’s body had been placed.   Within the second arch on the south side of the Quire, the marble step was removed and space opened.  The shrine appears to have been in the same area as the present slab which had been placed in the centre of the South Quire Aisle in 1790 and was moved to its present position in 1927.

Henry VI was not considered a successful king but rather a good and holy man widely regarded as a saint.   His one lasting achievement was in education, founding Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge.  At Windsor we commemorate his birthday with the ceremony of the Lilies and Roses.  Boys from Eton College attend an obit service together with representatives from Eton and King’s to lay lilies and roses on the tomb of Henry VI while special prayers are said.

“Let Thy blessing O Lord, be upon the Colleges of Thy servant King Henry VI and as Thou has appointed unto them diversities of gifts, grant then also the same spirit, so that they may together serve Thee to the welfare of Thy realm, the benefit of all men, and Thy Honour and Glory; through Jesus Christ Our Lord”.

Enid Davies (Assistant Archivist)