In the annals of chivalry, few institutions command such enduring mystique as the Most Noble Order of the Garter. Founded around St. George’s Day 1348 by King Edward III, it is the oldest and most senior order of knighthood in Britain. To the casual observer, its motto, Honi soit qui mal y pense (‘Shame on him who thinks evil of it’), and its curious emblem of a blue garter might evoke a quaint medieval romanticism. Yet, to dismiss the Order as a mere chivalric club is to fundamentally misunderstand its creation. The Order of the Garter was, from its inception, a masterstroke of political theatre and a shrewd instrument of statecraft. It was a mechanism for the symbolic selection of a new power elite, forged not just by birth but by battlefield prowess and, crucially, by unswerving loyalty to the Crown’s ambitions. The inclusion of Henry of Grosmont, Earl of Lancaster, Derby, and Lincoln, as a founder knight is not merely incidental; it is the key to unlocking the Order’s true purpose and a testament to the ascendancy of the House of Lancaster, whose power was deeply rooted in the soil of Lincolnshire.
The Crucible of War: The Genesis of an Idea
To understand the founding of the Garter, one must first understand the England of the 1340s. The decade was dominated by the all-consuming conflict with France that would become known as the Hundred Years’ War. Edward III, having laid claim to the French throne in 1337, was engaged in a high-stakes dynastic gamble that required unprecedented levels of military and financial mobilisation. This was a new kind of war, fought on a larger scale and with greater intensity than the feudal skirmishes of previous generations. It demanded a new kind of warrior aristocracy.
The English victories at the naval Battle of Sluys in 1340 and, most spectacularly, at the Battle of Crécy in 1346, had created a powerful sense of national pride and military camaraderie. These were not just triumphs for the king, but for the magnates, knights, and even the humble longbowmen who fought alongside him. Edward III, a charismatic and astute monarch, recognised the potent new energy released by these campaigns. This was a brotherhood forged in the heat of battle, a shared experience of risk and glory that transcended the often-fractious politics of the English court. The challenge for Edward was how to harness this energy, institutionalise it, and bind this new military elite permanently to his own royal person and dynastic cause.
The idea of a formal chivalric order was not new. Indeed, Edward had already experimented with the concept. In 1344, following a great tournament at Windsor Castle, the chronicler Adam Murimuth records that the king swore an oath to establish a ‘Round Table’ of 300 knights in the spirit of the legendary King Arthur. A great circular building, 200 feet in diameter, was even begun at Windsor to house this fellowship. The project, however, stalled, likely due to the pressing financial demands of the renewed war in France. Yet the ambition remained. The Garter, founded four years later, can be seen as the more exclusive, more focused, and ultimately more successful realisation of this earlier Arthurian dream. It was to be not a vast assembly, but an intimate and immensely prestigious inner circle.
Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense: Symbolism and Foundation
The traditional story of the Order’s foundation, famously recounted by the chronicler Jean Froissart decades later, is one of courtly romance. During a ball, a lady—often identified as Joan of Kent or the Countess of Salisbury—dropped her garter. As courtiers snickered, King Edward gallantly retrieved it, fastened it to his own leg, and uttered the words, “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” promising that he would turn this humble object into a symbol of the highest honour.
It is a charming tale, but most modern historians view it with considerable scepticism. It is likely a romantic post-rationalisation for an emblem and motto whose true meaning was far more political and defiant. The garter was an everyday item of clothing, but in this context, it became a potent symbol. The motto, ‘Shame on him who thinks evil of it,’ was not a rebuke to giggling courtiers. It was a direct challenge to anyone, at home or abroad, who would question Edward’s great enterprise: his claim to the throne of France. The "it" in the motto refers to the king's ambition itself. The Order of the Garter was the physical embodiment of this claim, and its knights were the sworn defenders of the king’s right. To ‘think evil’ of their fellowship was to ‘think evil’ of the king’s cause, and that was a shameful act.
The choice of St. George as the Order’s patron saint was equally deliberate. Previously a relatively minor saint in the English calendar, Edward III elevated him into a national symbol. St. George was the archetypal holy warrior, a dragon-slaying knight who represented the triumph of Christian virtue over evil. By dedicating his new order to St. George and centring its services at the newly rebuilt St. George’s Chapel at Windsor, Edward was cloaking his war in the language of a righteous crusade. The knights were not merely fighting for territory or dynastic pride; they were engaged in a divinely sanctioned mission, with St. George as their celestial champion.
The Chosen Few: The Founder Knights
The exclusivity of the Order was its greatest strength. It was limited to the Sovereign and twenty-five “Companion Knights”—a stark contrast to the 300 planned for the Round Table. To be chosen was to be marked as one of the indispensable men of the realm. The initial list of twenty-six founders reads like a roll-call of the architects of England’s military success in the 1340s.
At its head was the Sovereign, Edward III, and his heir, the sixteen-year-old Edward of Woodstock, already a hero of Crécy and known to posterity as the Black Prince. The other companions were a carefully curated blend of the highest-ranking magnates and the most battle-hardened knights. They included veterans like Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and William de Montagu, Earl of Salisbury. There were also knights of lesser rank but immense martial reputation, men like Sir John Chandos, Sir Walter Manny, and Sir James Audley, whose names were renowned throughout the courts of Christendom for their chivalric deeds. The inclusion of Gascon knights like the celebrated Sir Jean de Grailly, the Captal de Buch, shrewdly extended the Order’s reach, binding key allies in Edward’s French territories to his cause.
Within this stellar assembly, one figure stood out for his wealth, status, and proximity to the throne: Henry of Grosmont. As Earl of Lancaster, Derby, and Leicester, and also holding the title Earl of Lincoln through his father, he was the king’s cousin and the most powerful and affluent nobleman in England. His inclusion as a founder knight, second only to the Prince of Wales in precedence, was a political necessity for Edward. Henry was the epitome of the “over-mighty subject,” a man whose vast resources could make him either the Crown’s greatest asset or its most dangerous rival. His father, also named Henry, had been a key figure in the deposition of Edward II, a lesson in the power of the magnates that Edward III never forgot.
Henry of Grosmont was no mere courtier. He was arguably the most accomplished English military commander of his generation. In 1345, he had led a brilliant campaign in Gascony, winning a string of victories against the French, most notably at the Battle of Auberoche, where he led a daring surprise attack that annihilated a much larger French force. These victories secured England’s southern French territories and provided a crucial strategic diversion while Edward III prepared for his own invasion of Normandy the following year.
For the Barony of Brattleby and the wider county of Lincolnshire, the significance of Henry’s inclusion in the Garter was immense. While a small barony like Brattleby would have had no direct influence on such high politics, its fate was inextricably linked to the great magnates who dominated the region. Henry of Grosmont was that magnate. His power base was the vast network of estates, honours, and castles that constituted the Honour and Duchy of Lancaster. In Lincolnshire, this was a colossal presence. Bolingbroke Castle was a key ducal residence and administrative centre, a place from which the tentacles of Lancastrian power reached across the county, influencing everything from local justice to the appointment of sheriffs and the collection of taxes. The men of Brattleby would have paid their dues, directly or indirectly, to lords who ultimately answered to Henry of Lancaster. His prestige was their region’s prestige. When Henry was chosen for the Garter, the honour reflected upon his entire affinity, reaffirming his status as the unchallenged master of Lincolnshire and the Midlands. By binding Henry to him with the symbolic blue garter, Edward III was not just honouring a great soldier; he was harnessing the immense power of the Duchy of Lancaster and, by extension, the resources of counties like Lincolnshire, for his national project.
Chivalry as Statecraft
The Order of the Garter was, therefore, far more than a military award. It was a sophisticated tool of government, a way for the Crown to manage the powerful and ambitious men upon whom its survival depended.
Firstly, it was a mechanism for binding loyalty. By swearing an oath of companionship, the knights entered into a personal, almost familial, bond with the sovereign. This brotherhood superseded older feudal loyalties and created a new centralising allegiance focused directly on the king. For a figure like Henry of Grosmont, whose lineage and wealth gave him a quasi-royal status, the Garter served to channel his ambitions towards the service of the Crown rather than against it. He was no longer just the Earl of Lancaster; he was a Companion of the Garter, a sworn brother to his king. This personal bond was reinforced by the Order's collective spiritual duties and its magnificent annual feasts at Windsor, which served as both a reunion and a reaffirmation of their shared purpose.
Secondly, the Order was an instrument of royal propaganda. The splendour of the Garter ceremonies, the rich velvet robes, the enamelled stall plates in St. George’s Chapel, and the very mystique of the institution were all part of a carefully constructed image of power. To foreign ambassadors and rival monarchs, particularly the Valois kings of France, the Garter broadcast a message of a united and formidable English elite, bound together in martial glory under a charismatic warrior-king. It was a projection of soft power, the cultural and symbolic equivalent of the longbows at Crécy.
Thirdly, the Garter institutionalised a form of sacralised service. By framing his elite military unit within a religious context, Edward III elevated the profession of arms. The Garter knights were portrayed as champions of Christendom, their war legitimized by divine will. This process of sanctifying the Crown’s favourites transformed them from mere feudal warlords into pillars of a sacred royal project. This was particularly important for rewarding men of non-noble birth who had risen through military talent. The Garter provided a new, uniquely royal path to the pinnacle of status, bypassing traditional aristocratic hierarchies and ensuring that their loyalty remained firmly with the monarch who had elevated them.
The Lincolnshire Magnate and the Garter’s Legacy
For Henry of Grosmont, the Garter was a stepping-stone to even greater honours that further solidified his bond with Edward III. In 1351, he was elevated to the status of Duke of Lancaster, the first non-royal ducal creation in England for centuries. This was an extraordinary mark of favour, placing him on a par with the Prince of Wales. The king granted him palatinate powers within Lancashire, meaning he ruled the county with quasi-regal authority, holding his own courts and appointing his own officials. This was the ultimate expression of trust, a reward for the years of loyal service symbolised by his Garter companionship. Henry went on to serve the king as a premier diplomat, leading embassies and negotiating treaties, most notably the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, which brought a temporary halt to the Hundred Years’ War on terms highly favourable to England.
When Henry died of the plague in 1361, his enormous inheritance passed, through his daughter Blanche, to the king’s own son, John of Gaunt (himself made a Knight of the Garter in 1361). Thus, the vast power of the Duchy of Lancaster, so deeply rooted in Lincolnshire and so carefully managed by Edward III through the Garter relationship with Henry of Grosmont, was ultimately absorbed into the royal family itself. A generation later, Gaunt’s son, Henry Bolingbroke—born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire and also a Knight of the Garter—would use that very power base to usurp the throne and become King Henry IV, founding the Lancastrian dynasty. The legacy of the Garter, therefore, runs in a direct line from the honour conferred on a loyal magnate in 1348 to the creation of a royal house.
Over 670 years later, the Order of the Garter continues to exist. Its modern members are no longer medieval warlords, but the principle remains the same: it is a personal gift of the Sovereign, an honour bestowed upon those who have given distinguished service to the nation. It remains a symbol of an elite, an inner circle bound by a common sense of duty.
In conclusion, the foundation of the Order of the Garter in 1348 was a defining moment of Edward III’s reign. It was the brilliant crystallisation of a new political reality, a response to the demands of total war, and a means of domesticating the immense power of the English nobility. It fused the romantic allure of Arthurian chivalry with the cold pragmatism of state building. The presence of Henry of Grosmont, the great lord of Lincoln and Lancaster, at its heart reveals its core function: to identify the men who truly mattered and bind them, with a simple band of blue cloth and a defiant motto, to the glorious and perilous ambitions of the English Crown. The blue garter was not a trinket from a courtly dance; it was the badge of a new order, a political and military covenant that would shape the course of English history for centuries to come.
Sources & Further Reading
Primary Sources: Froissart's Chronicles. Especially the passages relating to the foundation of the Garter, though they must be read with caution regarding their romantic embellishments. (Various translations available, e.g., by Geoffrey Brereton). The Chronicle of Adam Murimuth, included in Adae Murimuth Continuatio Chronicarum. Robertus de Avesbury de Gestis Mirabilibus Regis Edwardi Tertii, edited by E. M. Thompson (Rolls Series, 1889). For the 1344 "Round Table" project. The Register of the Black Prince, Part I (1346–1348). Provides administrative context for the period of the Garter's founding.
Secondary Sources: Ashmole, Elias. The Institution, Laws and Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (1672). The foundational, though dated, antiquarian work on the Order. Barber, Richard. Edward III and the Triumph of England: The Battle of Crécy and the Company of the Garter (Allen Lane, 2013). An excellent modern study connecting the war directly to the Order’s creation. Barker, Juliet. The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation (Windmill Books, 2009). A comprehensive biography that places the Garter within the context of Edward's broader political strategy. Boulton, D'Arcy J.D. The Knights of the Crown: The Monarchical Orders of Knighthood in Later Medieval Europe, 1325-1520 (Boydell Press, 2000). A comparative academic study placing the Garter in its European context. Collins, Hugh E. L. The Order of the Garter, 1348-1461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England (Clarendon Press, 2000). The definitive modern scholarly analysis of the early Garter. Fowler, Kenneth Alan. The King's Lieutenant: Henry of Grosmont, First Duke of Lancaster, 1310-1361 (Elek, 1969). The standard, and still indispensable, biography of Henry of Grosmont. Ormrod, W. Mark. Edward III (Yale University Press, 2011). A magisterial biography with detailed analysis of Edward’s use of chivalry as a political tool. Sumption, Jonathan. The Hundred Years War, Vol. I: Trial by Battle and Vol. II: Trial by Fire (Faber & Faber, 1990; 1999). Provides unparalleled narrative detail on the military and political context of the 1340s. Victoria County History of Lincolnshire, Vol. II (1906). For background on the administration and landholding patterns of the Duchy of Lancaster in the county.