KNIGHTHOOD. 
792 
nulets -of gold, and pendent thereunto the image of St. 
Andrew, with his crofs, and the epigraph Nenio me impune 
lacejjet. The figure whereof may be feen in a pifture of 
James V. of Scotland in his majefty’s gallery at White¬ 
hall,” See. The fprigs of rue, however, hold an interme¬ 
diate place with the thiftle in the collar now worn,as de- 
feribed in its proper place. 
The hidden death of king James V. of Scotland, the 
rebellion againft queen Mary, and the troubles which en- 
fued in that kingdom, engrofi'dd fo much of the minds of 
the rulers, the nobility, and the people, that the order 
was nearly extinguifhed, and continued to be neglected 
until the reign of James II. of England and VII. of Scot¬ 
land ; when that prince railed it from its allies, and made 
it re-appear with fplendour, on the 29th of May, 1687. 
He ilfued his warrant for letters patent to be made out, 
and palled perfaltum, under the great feal of Scotland; and 
at the fame time promulgated a body of Itatutes and or¬ 
dinances for regulating the revived order of the Thiftle. 
Several knights were invelted on the occafion ; and the 
order continued to flourilh during the remainder of that 
ill-advifed monarch’s reign. On his abdication, the thif¬ 
tle drooped again, and the acceflion of king William was 
not calculated to make it refume its former brightnefs. En¬ 
gaged in civil and military affairs of the greatelt moment, 
his mind was not directed to any fchemes of that deferip- 
tion, and the order was again laid afide. Queen Anne, 
by her letters patent, bearing date at St. James’s, Decem¬ 
ber 31, 1703, revived, continued, and re-eftablillied, it, or¬ 
dering at the fame time that the ancient number of knights, 
viz. twelve brethren and the fovereign, Ihould be the 
precife number of the order in all times then coming ; 
and allb that the fovereign’s habit Ihould be fuch as the 
fovereigns themfelves Ihould think fit to appoint. For 
the delcription of the knights’ habit, badge, collar, See. 
and other particulars, not mentioned here, fee the article 
Heraldry, vol. x. p. 773. Since the laft revival, the 
order has continued to flourifii with uninterrupted honour 
and dignity; and has offered feveral times, to the monarch 
of the united kingdom, the appropriate means to reward 
the well-known valour of the Scots. 
XIV. Tiie Knights of the Martyrs in Paleftine 
and Jerusalem, or of Sr. Cosmas and Damian. Aftimole 
tells us, that by the pious affection of fome nobleman this 
order was erected in the Holy Land, and an hofpital de¬ 
dicated to the holy martyrs above-mentioned ; where all 
acts of charity were exercifed towards lick ftrangers. The 
patron faints, Cofinas and Damianus, were believed to 
have exercifed the profeffion of phyficians, and are ftill, in 
foreign countries, the tutelary faints of the faculty. The 
profeffion of the knights obliged them allb to perform all 
other works of mercy towards the poor and needy ; to 
redeem captives taken by the Saracens, and to bury the 
dead. They followed the rule of St. Bafil, which was 
confirmed to them by pope John XXII. others lay John 
XX. in or about the year 1024. They \v9re, for the 
badge of the order, a red crofs, hnd within a circle, in the 
middle thereof the figures of the faints. We muff men¬ 
tion, however, that this ftatement has been ftrongly con- 
tradibled by authors, who pretend that this order never 
exifted at all ; and that the miltake arefe from confound¬ 
ing the Regular Canons of the Penitence of the Martyrs, 
as they were called, with an order of knighthood. But, 
if we eonfider that the duties incumbent upon the knights 
of St. Cofinas and St. Damian required them to be pro¬ 
perly armed to face the dangers to which they were often 
expofed in performing them; and that Afhmole, after the 
teftimony of ancient writers, has admitted the order as 
one in his catalogue of religious and military aflbeiations; 
we are inclined to fitppole and allow his ftatement to be 
entitled to a great deal of credit. 
XV. The Order of our Lady of the Lily, or 
of Navarre. Garcias VI. king of Navarre, labouring 
under an extreme ficknefs, and having tried in vain the 
flcill of the phyficians of the time, fent to all places of de¬ 
votion to have prayers offered for the reftoration of his 
health. By a very curious coincidence, at the fame time 
was found in the city of Nagera, where he kept his court, 
an image of the Virgin Mary Bluing out of a lily, a molt 
appropriate fymbol of the Virgin’s innocence, and well 
calculated to ftrengthen the belief of the miracle. At the 
fame, moment the king found himfelf better, and fud- 
denly recovered. To perpetuate his devotion and grati¬ 
tude to the Virgin, it is faid that he inftitnted this order 
of knighthood in the year 1048. It confifted of thirty- 
eight knights, felected from the molt noble and ancient 
families of Navarre, Bifcay, and Old Caftile. The kings 
ot Navarre were the fovereigns of the order. The obli¬ 
gations which the knights took at their inveftitures were, 
to expofe their lives and fortunes for the Chriftian faith, 
the confervation of the crown of Navarre, and the expul¬ 
sion of the Moors, an objeft of the utmoft importance for 
the Spaniards of that time. Each of the knights wore on 
his breaft a lily embroidered in filver, and on ail feftivals 
and holidays a collar compofed of a double chain of gold, 
interlaced with the initial letter of the word Maria, the 
letter in the Gothic fhape, and pendent thereunto an 
oval medal, whereon was enamelled on a white ground a 
lily of gold, bearing the fame letter ducally crowned. The 
habit was white, wrought all over’in needle-work with 
white lilies. See Plate I. The portraits of feveral kings 
of Navarre, fuccefibrs to Garcias, were feen with the in¬ 
signia of this order about their necks in the church of St. 
Mary at Nagera, and feveral other churches of Navarre. 
XVI. The Order of St. Catharine of Mount Si¬ 
nai, was inftituted about the year 1063 or 1007, under the 
patronage and title of St. Catharine, whofe body is re¬ 
ported to have been depofited in Mount Sinai; and the 
high-altar of the church of the monaftery there, dedicated 
to her name, was ereded near the place where fhe was 
interred. At their admiffion, the knights promifed to 
guard and keep fafe the fepulclire of St. Catharine, to fe- 
cure the way for travellers, to defend and proteft the 
Grecian pilgrims who frequently repaired thither to pay 
their devotions at the ton.b of the faint, and to relieve 
and entertain them with convenient hofpitality ; a prac¬ 
tice which was moft common at that time, and afforded 
great comfort to thole, who, for any purpofe whatever, 
were obliged to travel in thofe defert places. But, when 
the country fell into the hands of the Mahometans, the 
order, of courfe, was abolilhed; yet a weak lhadow of it 
remained in the cuftom which the monks of the monaftery 
have kept, to admit the ftrangers as knights of St. Catha¬ 
rine. Some tell us that the badge confided in a wheel of 
fix fpokes gules, nailed argent, traverfed by a crofs potent 
or, and cantoned with four plain croffes. See Plate I. 
Others affert that it was only a wheel or part of one, 
and a fword through it: Dimidium rotes rubra quam enfis 
interfecabat. 
XVII. The Order of Malta. In the middle of the 
eleventh century, fome Neapolitan merchants, who had 
experienced the inhumanity of the Arabians and Saracens, 
undertook to procure an afylum for the European pil¬ 
grims in the very city of Jerulalem, where they might 
have nothing to fear, either from the falfe zeal of the 
Muffulmen, or the enmity and averfion of the fchifmatical 
Greeks. Their affairs, in regard to trade and commerce, 
called them almoft every year into Egypt, where, by 
means of their rich merchandife, as well as fome curious 
pieces of workmanlhip which they brought thither from 
Europe, they were introduced to the court of the caliph 
Monftafer-biilah, and obtained leave for the Latin Chrif- 
tians to build a houfe of entertainment, that is, a kind 
of inn or hofpital, in Jerufalem. The governor of the 
holy city, by that prince’s order, afiigned them a portion 
of ground before the patriarchal church of the holy fe- 
pulchre, on which they built a chapel, and dedicated it 
to the Virgin by the name of St. Mary ad Latinos , to dif- 
tinguifh it from thofe churches where divine iervice was 
performed according to the Greek ritual. Some monk3 
