but we suspect, that if it were whispered to the Dean of Westminster, that unless all the difficulties were instantly obviated, the Order would be removed to St. Pauls, and that the Dean of that church would consequently become its Dean, and receive all the fees, we should hear of no more obstacles from that quarter.

It can easily be discovered whether the order for the record of the pedigrees of the Knights Commanders in the College of Arms, for which fees may have been paid, has been obeyed, the books being open to public inspection; and it is a point well worth the inquiry of the individuals concerned; but whether the pedigrees of the families of the Knights Commanders, their coatarmour, and statements of their military services in the books appropriated to the Knights Commanders, for which each of them paid 77. 8s., and the statements of the military services of the Companions, for which each of them paid 27. 16s. 8d., have been recorded, we have no means of knowing, since the said books, if they really exist, are kept with the utmost secrecy. Enough has however been evinced, with respect to the manner in which the other engagements with the members of the Order have been fulfilled, to justify our doubts on the subject. We would therefore respectfully suggest to the present Acting Great Master, to inquire into the fact; and we hope we shall be forgiven for entreating his Royal Highness to trust to no other evidence than an actual inspection of the said books, and more particularly not to rely on the dictum of any person whatever on the point. It is equally necessary that his Royal Highness should ascertain whether the records of the Order are public or private property; - and if public property, that they may be open to the inspection of the public, or at all events, of the members of the Order; and that care be taken that they shall not be sold at the death of the present officer as part of his effects. This may not be a needless caution.

From these statements it is manifest that, supposing all the Knights Commanders and Companions have paid their fees, Sir George Nayler has received at least £5,946, for which but little, if any thing, has yet been done: what may have been effected for the £3,465, received for recording the pedigrees and arms of the Knights Commanders, the statements of their services, and the services of the Companions, remains to be proved'.

Of the fitness of the present officer attendant on the Knights

In this calculation we have considered the whole number of Knights Commanders of the Bath that have been created to be 250, and of Companions to be 570. It is extremely difficult to state the precise numbers; but we are sure that the above is the minimum of each class.

Commanders and Companions to advise on the Order of the Bath, the inconsistencies which have been committed since his connexion with it are sufficient evidence. Still, if he had performed what he has received money for doing, those who paid it would not have so much reason to complain; but, whilst grasping at every farthing that could be legally demanded, little consideration has been shown for the rights of others. When the letters, which we have inserted, appeared, the College of Arms published a protest in the daily journals, which, from its curiosity, we shall give in a note; and the intimation in Mr. Woods's

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"The Kings, Heralds, and Pursuivants of the College of Arms, in Chapter assembled, taking into consideration two circular letters, which have appeared in several of the public papers, addressed to the Knights Commanders of the most honourable Order of the Bath, upon the subject of their escocheons, banners, pedigrees, and coat-armour, dated from the said College on the 9th instant; one of them signed William Woods, Secretary to the Knights Commanders and Companions;' and the other signed George Nayler, York Herald, Genealogist of the Bath:' think it necessary to publish and declare, that the said William Woods, not being a herald, or officer of arms, nor invested with any of the privileges belonging to the members of this Corporation, has not any right, nor can be entitled to intermeddle in any matters relative to pedigree and coatarmour, such being the exclusive duty of the said Kings, Heralds, and Pursuivants: that the letter signed George Nayler, York Herald, Genealogist of the Bath,' calling upon the Knights Commanders to transmit to him an account of their family pedigree and arms, is a still greater violation of the rights and privileges of this College (established for many centuries, and derived from charters and letters patent from the crown), and directly in breach of a statute of the Order of the Bath, made in the year 1804, for the express purpose of settling the question, then in dispute, whether the Genealogist had or had not an exclusive right in all matters of arms and pedigree that concerned the said Order; which statute, proceeding upon the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown, delivered to the King, by his Majesty's special command, declares that 'the Heralds' (that is to say, the Kings, Heralds, and Pursuivants of the College of Arms) have the original cognizance of pedigrees and coat-armour, and that the Genealogist of the Order of the Bath cannot properly receive any evidence of pedigree or coat-armour, to be entered in his books, in pursuance of the statutes, except from the College of Arms;' and reciting that, at a Chapter of the said College, it had been resolved, that the Treasurer of the said College should provide a book, to be used only for the entry of the pedigrees and arms of the Knights of the Bath; and that of every entry so to be made the Register should, upon the application of the Genealogist of the said Order, deliver, or cause to be delivered, to the said Genealogist a copy, to be entered in the books of the said Order, according to the statutes of the said Order, for which copy no fees should be charged or taken by the Register, or any other officer of the said College; finally commands and enjoins all the Knights who have been invested with the Order since the year 1792, to record their respective pedigrees and coat-armour in the College of Arms (paying the accustomed fees), and distinctly enjoins the Genealogist to apply to the Register of the College for copies of the same, that he may thereby be enabled and authorised to transcribe them into the genealogical books of the Order.

"The Kings, Heralds, and Pursuivants of Arms, anxious to procure a due obedience to the royal command above referred to, for the honour of the Order of the Bath, so immediately connected with that obedience, and for the maintenance of their own peculiar rights and interest; and clearly convinced that the circumstance of the letters in question being dated from this College must naturally excite, as doubtless they were intended to excite, the idea that they were written upon the authority and with the concurrence of the Officers of the said College, from whom, in fact, the utmost industry had been used to conceal them, offer the premises to the serious consideration of all the Members of the most honourable Order of the Bath, but more especially to that of the Knights Commanders, leaving it to them to decide, whether they will suffer themselves to be misled

letter to the Knights Commanders, "I have it in command to inform you, that the fees in your Knighthood are not to be defrayed by you," is remarkable for the omission of the name of the person by whom those commands were given, and no less so from the fact, that those fees have never yet been paid by any one, though we are persuaded that the numerous individuals, among whom they ought to be shared, might recover the amount by legal process, from every officer who has received the distinction. There is a passage in the latter part of Sir George Nayler's letter, which is too amusing to be suffered to pass unnoticed. The new Knight Commander is requested to furnish "a sketch or impression of the armorial ensigns used by you, in order that I may cause the banner and plate of your arms to be prepared and placed in Westminster Abbey ;" to which the writer signs himself," York Herald Genealogist of the Order of the Bath;" the first of which titles does not occur in his letter to the Companions. From the passage we have extracted, the Knights Commanders must have imagined that, after furnishing the sketches of their arms, and paying the fees, they would hear no further on the subject; but Sir George Nayler was, as he took care to inform them, a Herald as well as Genealogist of the Order of the Bath, and he could not therefore presume to place armorial bearings on a banner, without first seeing that the arms thus used were, in the technical phrase," good," or, in other words, that they really belonged to the individuals who had assumed them. How very few coats, thus submitted to him, bore that investigation as satisfactorily to the wearers as to the " as to the "Genealogist of the Order," every one conversant with the usage of arms in the nineteenth century can easily imagine; and hence arose inquiries, grants, and continuations of pedigrees innumerable, all enriching the worthy Genealogist of the Order, but reducing the chevalier to the state of Esop's crow. The poor Knight Commander had, however, no choice: arms he must have, or he would be deprived of the proud honour of seeing his banner in Westminster Abbey. Arms, then, he obtained in the quickest manner possible, by paying the expenses of a grant, deeming himself happy to escape from the miseries of a genealogical investigation at the sacrifice of 707. This done, the object of his inquisitors was accomplished: the money was paid; and, to this hour, the banner has never been suspended! In the long interval of twelve years, a great many of those officers have died, having thus spent their money fruitlessly. If we were speaking

by the unfounded pretensions of two individuals, or act in conformity to the authority of the latest and most important of the statutes enacted for the government of the Order. "Signed (by Order of Chapter),

VOL. I.-PART III.

"R. BIGLAND, NORROY AND REGISTER "

H H

of any other men, we would ask, why, when such extreme care was taken that the Knights Commanders should not pay the fees of knighthood, some means were not devised for saving the purses of the Knights from any claims they might themselves be able to create ?

We have at length performed the disagreeable task of exposing the effects which ignorance and avarice have produced with respect to the Order of the Bath. After alluding to an extraordinary report, which we have heard from good authority, that the officers who have lately been nominated Companions have been told that their badges cannot be given to them until some of the present Companions die, as no more crosses are allowed to be made a statement almost incredible, and which we are sure need only be thus brought to the attention of government to be instantly inquired into-we turn with pleasure to the fact, that the office of Great Master of the Order has just been conferred upon his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, whose zeal and ability will, we are persuaded, be immediately directed to reform the Order; to remove its abuses; to render its statutes consistent with common sense; and to cause the objects for which its members have paid their money to be forthwith accomplished.

So convinced are we that the new Great Master will direct his energies to this subject, that we shall refrain from presuming to point out any mode of reforming the Order; because we are aware that, however eligible our suggestions might be deemed, the fact of their being thus publicly submitted would prevent their adoption. We shall, therefore, conclude with respectfully reminding his Royal Highness, that, as the "Rules and Regulations" mentioned in the Gazette of 1815 have not yet appeared, the means are afforded him of effecting whatever changes he may think it necessary to recommend to his Majesty ; and that, as his appointment of Great Master has, according to the original statutes, vested in him the nomination of all the officers of the Order, we confidently rely on his disinterestedness and impartiality, that he will be influenced in his selection of the persons to fill up whatever vacancies may occur, by no other consideration than a regard to the ability which the candidates may possess for the proper discharge of the duties belonging to the situation. If, however, it is not in the Great Master's power to remedy all the recent anomalies, yet he may stop the system of receiving fees without a prospect of the attainment of the objects for which they are paid; and we only entreat his Royal Highness not to be influenced by the persons whose conduct is complained of, to put confidence in their opinions, or to trust to their suggestions. We have proved their incompetency, even if they be acquitted of a

heavier charge; and it remains alone for his Royal Highness, whose fearless and indefatigable exertions with respect to every part of the duties of Lord High Admiral are a guarantee that, in his office of Great Master of the Order of the Bath, his Royal Highness will be equally vigilant, to restore it to the consideration to which it is entitled in this and all other countries.

TRAVELLING EXPENSES IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

[Concluded from p. 276.]

Md. qd Phil's de Casto recepi de Dño die Ven'is p'x. añ Sci G'gorii Pape xxvis. viii d. unde lib'at' Dño x s. p' div'sis negosiis & lib't' diam Marcam ad unam Ceriaunt. in ecclã Sce Paule. It'm Recepit de Dño xxs. viii d. die M'curii p'a p's festu Sce G'gorii Pape.

Itm die Jovis p'x. añ festu Scē G'gorii Pape in exp'ns' in pane vii d. s'visia viiid. ob. vinu iid. ob. coquina de stauro p't' in alio Rotulo. Eodem die ad ientakilū in Bredstret q'ndo D'ns Nicola de Bonevile et Phl's Colonuber & multi alii de domo D'ni Will'mi Martin fueū ibi afeur de Marchaunt ixx d. ibidem in vino id. q. in datis et pomis iid. in passagio versus Westmiist'ium et r'to ii d. ob. q. in candelis et vino ago 3 id. in feno ii d. in avenis vid. in focalibz ob. in uno lectu ad Joh'em Perot & Standdard id. in sotularibz Phl'i de Casto vid.

Sma iiii s. xid. ob.

Memorandum, that Philip de Castro received of his Lord, on the Friday next before St. Gregory the Pope, 26s. 8d., of which he delivered to his lord 10s. for different affairs, and half a mark to a Serjeant in the church of St. Paul. Also received of the Lord 20s. 8d., on Wednesday next after the feast of St. Gregory the Pope.

Item, Thursday next before the feast of St. Gregory the Pope, in expenses. Bread 7d. Beer 84d. Wine 24d. The meat supplied from the store, particulars in another roll. On the same day, at breakfast, in Breadstrete,4 when Sir Nicholas de Bonevile, and Philip Columbers, and many others of the household of Sir William Martin, were there, 19d. At the same place, Wine 14d. Dates and apples 2d. Going to Westminster and back 24d. Candles and vinegar 1d. Hay 2d. Oats 6d. Fuel d. A bed for John Perot and Standdard Id. Shoes for Philip de Castro

6d.

Sum, 4s. 11 d.

This fee to the Serjeant shows on what account such frequent visits were made to Westminster. We shall find that a second 6s. 8d. was given him.

2 The Columbers family were barons of the realm, Stowey in Somersetshire being the head of their barony. There were several of the name of Philip: but the notice of this Sir Philip Columbers being of the bousehold of Sir William Martin, guides us to the latest of the name mentioned by Dugdale, who married a daughter of Sir William Martin. Dugdale's account of him is that he was aged 24 at the death of his father, 34 Edward I.; that, in 13 Edward III., he was associated with Hugh de Courtenay, Earl of Devon, in guarding the coast of Hants; that he had summons to parliament from 8 Edward II. to 15 Edward III., and died in the 16 Edward III., leaving Stephen de Columbers, his brother and heir, then aged 40.

3 Vinum agasatum, Vinegar. Ducange.

4 It plainly appears from this article, what may be presumed from the frequent mention of Bread-street in these accompts, that the party were living there while in London. In the time of Stowe, it was famous for the number of inns: "Bred Streete is now wholly inhabited by rich marchants, and divers faire inns bee there, for good receipt of carriers and other travellers to the city." London, 4to. p. 348. It seems as if the inns had degenerated between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries.