Garter, Order of the

Senior British order of knighthood (see knighthood, order of), founded by Edward III in about 1347. Its distinctive badge is a garter of dark-blue velvet, with the motto of the order – Honi soit qui mal y pense (‘Shame be to him who thinks evil of it’) – in gold letters. Knights of the Garter write KG after their names.

Origins According to the 14th-century historian Jean Froissart, Edward III resolved to rebuild Windsor Castle, supposedly the scene of dramas of King Arthur and the Round Table, and to make an order of knights of himself and his children, to be called the Knights of the Blue Garter; an annual feast of the order was to be held at Windsor on St George's Day. Popular tradition has a different version, in which the countess of Salisbury's garter was dropped at court and picked up by the king, who, observing the smiles of the onlookers, tied it round his own knee and uttered the words ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’. A third theory is that of the antiquary William Camden, who says that the order originated 1346 at the battle of Crécy, when Edward ordered his garter to be displayed as a signal for the onset.