[MACKENZIE] THE BARONETS OF NOVA SCOTIA 119 
The Baronets of Nova Scotia may well be proud of their right to 
wear this ancient Cognizance, an hereditary distinction of no ordinary 
kind, confined as it is to them alone amongst all classes of His Majesty’s 
subjects, a privilege enjoyed by no other knightly Order, not even by 
the Peerage itself. Baronets have deemed it their right to be allowed to 
wear a coronet on the ground that since the erection of the Order of 
Baronet a coronet had been granted to Barons and therefore “ to prevent 
the anomaly of Baronets being the only degree of hereditary dignity in 
this realm without a Coronet and the Knights helmet which they now 
bear, being manifestly inappropriate, as belonging to their inferior per- 
sonal degree, good grounds are open to the Baronets whereupon to prefer 
a Petition praying Her Majesty to accord to them some distinctive head 
decoration.” 2! This privilege has, so far, not been allowed. Honours 
of this nature which flow from the Crown are undoubtedly to be esteem- 
ed and cherished, but they should be won, not sought for. Let the 
coronet be the emblem of the Peer as it now properly is, and let the Cog- 
nizance of Nova Scotia be that of the Baronet of that Order. When the 
latter is raised to the Peerage, as has frequently been the case, then and 
not till then, let him assume the coronet. Were the concession of a coro- 
net made to-day to the Baronets of Nova Scotia would it add one iota to 
the dignity which is already theirs in right of the Cognizance with all its 
ancient and historic associations, which they now wear: a right bestowed 
nearly three hundred years ago by the Royal Founder? To those who 
wish to behold a coronet upon our heads, let us quote the Motto of one 
of our Order,| whilst displaying the bright St. Andrew’s Cross shining 
upon the silver Scutcheon of the old Cognizance: “ Crux Christi Nostra 
Corona.” 
Mi S| 

The Ancient Crest of the Royal Province of Nova Scotia. 

|| Sir David Edward Durell Barclay, of Pierston, Bart. N.S. 
