HERBS USED IN DECORATIONS, ETC. 113 



Saxony, who created the Order of the Rautenkrone on 

 the 20th July 1807. In the newspapers of October 24th, 

 1902, it was announced that the I^ng of Saxony had 

 conferred the Order of the Crown of Rue on the Prince 

 of Wales. Sprigs of Rue are now interlaced in the 

 CoUar of the Order of the Thistle, but earlier it was 

 composed of thistles and knots. There is extreme 

 uncertainty as to the origin or this Order, and cold 

 suspicion is thrown on assertions that it was, of old, 

 an established " Fraternity, ^ following the lines of other 

 Orders of Knighthood." The first appearance of a collar 

 is on the gold bonnet pieces struck in 1539, where King 

 James V. is represented with a collar composed alternately 

 of thistle heads and what seem to be knots or links 

 in the form of the figure 8 or of the letter S, and a 

 similar collar is placed round the Royal Arms in 

 another gold piece of the same year. Collars with 

 knots of a slightly different shape appear on Queen 

 Mary's Great Seal and on that of James VI. Ashmole 

 says:^ "It was thought fit that the collars of both the 

 Garter and Thistle of King Charles I. should be used in 

 Scotland, 1633 " ; but after that the Order seems to have 

 lapsed, for Guillim (Ed. 1679) ?^^^ ^^^ " Order of 

 Knights of The Thistle or of St Andrewe's " between 

 the Orders of The Knights of the Round Table and 

 the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and 

 speaks of all their rites and ceremonies in the past 

 tense. This seems as if at that period there was an 

 absolute pause in its chequered career. In 1685 it 

 was " revived " by James II. of Great Britain, who 

 created eight knights, but during the Revolution it 

 lapsed again and " lay neglected till Queen Anne in 

 1703 restored it to the primitive design of twelve 



1 Sir H. Nicholas. "History of the Orders of Knighthood of the 

 British Empire." 



2 " History of the Most Noble Order of the Garter." 



H 



