One for the protocol office.

As my book edges ever closer to the precipice of entering final copy-editing, the lovely Caroline has emailed me wondering whether we should flag the mentions of Prince William and Kate Middleton in my book for updating. What a nice problem to have? We'll have to work out the protocol of referring to them before they became Duke and Duchess and all.

And ... can I just say about all that stuff about tradition and modernity in The Dress, and the Duchess's bringing of a new fresh modernity into the institution of the monarchy ... that this has been the dominant discourse of the royal family for at least a good sixty years. I'm just saying: read my final chapter!

Finishing

There are many stages to finishing a book. But one of the biggest is when you send off ten files that include Acknowledgements, Bibliography and Table of Contents, as well as deathless Introduction (oh! ghost of Gwen Harwood, who used to use that adjective to mock academic prose, do you choose this moment to visit me now? *shudders*) and seven chapters. As I have just done.

The study is a mess of papers; the computer is a mess of files (will back-up as soon as I post this post); there's an enormous pile of ironing in the basket; and a stack of emails to answer, and tasks to complete.

There'll be another round of tightening-up revisions once the copy-editors have been through the manuscript, and Helen and Anne are still working on the thirty photographs and images and permissions, but for now, I've done all I can.

I feel I've run a marathon. I'm dehydrated. I haven't been to the gym for a week. My shoulders ache and my eyes blur. I crash into bed at nights exhausted and lie waking for three more hours. It's partly the sheer masses of detail that have to be mastered: the checking, the refining, the polishing. The redundant commas to be removed: thanks, Romana! But hardest of all is the relinquishing, the letting go of the project and its infinite possibilities. The last few months have been a slow and painful process of letting go of all the other directions this book could have taken.

I feel I'm not writing this very eloquently. But I am also aware of the irony: finish a book, then immediately write something else!

Sometimes people ask me, "have you finished your work?" It's the nature of the academic life that you have never finished. There is always some ongoing project. I'm going to be late with a book review that's due in ten days.

But once a decade or so, I manage it. I have finished. My work here is done.

You're probably dying to know what the last word is. It's "heart".

Pressing "send"

Had you been close to my house ten minutes ago, you would have heard a loud "squeak". That was the sound of me pressing "Send" as I sent off the first six chapters of my book on the Order of the Garter to the very patient editor at the big US press I hope will publish this book. We've never signed a contract to publish, which was a good idea as I would never have met a deadline, and it would have just been a source of stress (as I'm writing this post, I can see in the email "progress" window that a quarter of the ms. has now been sent).

The deal is that these chapters can now go out to be read, while I finish the last, a third of which is drafted.

There are many stages to go, of course. If the reports are positive, I hope we'll then sign a contract; and while I secretly hope and believe the readers will think it's perfect as it is, there will certainly be changes to make. Then there's final approval, copy-editing (half of the message has now gone), tracking down of permissions for images, checking, and cross-checking of references, compilation of bibliography and all the rest of it.

Still, this is a big day: the first, very big milestone on the last stretch towards completion.

What am I going to do now?

I'm going to go outside and feed the goldfish, then come back in and work on a grant application for an hour or so. And then tonight, I am going to see this. How's that for timing?

And how's this? Entourage has just played its little chimes: message SENT.

Flirting with a Handkerchief

In a poem of 1620, Richard Johnson attributes the Honi soit qui mal y pense motto to the queen of France, in his “Gallant Song of the Garter of England.” When her garter falls during a feast, the snickering courtiers seem to accuse her of dropping it deliberately to attract the king’s attention, so it is actually the queen who coins the motto in their reproof:

But when she heard these ill conceits

And speeches that they made,

Hony soyt qui mal y pens,

                        the noble Princes said.

Ill hap to them that evill thinke,

In English it is thus

Which words so wise (quoth Englands King)

                                   shall surely goe with us …

This reminds me of those stupid scenes in Mickey Mouse-vintage cartoons, where a simpering female character would drop her lace handkerchief in front of a male she wanted to attract. He is supposed, gallantly, to return it, and thus start a conversation. 

My question is this: what's the oldest known reference to this kind of behaviour? I did a quick google search and found an allusion, but it was a website selling a C19 French lace handkerchief. http://www.rubylane.com/shops/nicole-la-bay/item/1208LAC: 

At a time when women were not allowed to talk to a stranger, handkerchiefs were literally a means of communication, as ladies would drop these precious pieces of lace on the sidewalk, whenever they wanted to attract the attention of a gentleman.
Gentlemen were of course extremely flattered to pick them up and give them back to their owners.

I've no idea if this is just made up or refers to a "real" C19 practice. So, dear readers, from your wide reading in history, fiction, poetry, textile history, etc., can you think of any examples? I guess Johnson's poem suggests an early suspicion of feminine wiles, but it's the handkerchief that has become the iconic object here. But since when?

Why I Love my Readers

A while back I asked if anyone would be interested in reading a chapter of my book on the Order of the Garter. I was overwhelmed by people's willingness to do this, and am now slowly working through these comments as I try to get my six chapters ready to send to the publisher (hopefully, within a week or two). I'm working backwards, so as to leave the hardest chapters (1 and 2) to last, and so that I have the fullest sense of the book as I revise those crucial opening chapters.

People's responses have been tremendously useful, and I'm amazed at the tact with which people have pointed out where the argument is hard to follow or doesn't make sense. I'm also thrilled at the deftness with which people have suggested clever readings of the primary material I look at. I feel the book is really starting to come together properly now, and it's absolutely due to these responses.

I'm just going through Chapter Three now and have Philip and David to thank, today, for helping me make sense of this chapter, which has to work through the many variants of the Garter myth. I hope Philip won't mind my sharing this comment, which makes me laugh out loud each time I read it.

Page 16: "Other versions and variants also circulated."

- Did you write this chapter in a linear way, from start to finish? At this precise point you're sounding a bit lethargic, as if the sheer quantity and variety of material was too much to bear. Which of course it is, but you may want to seem effortlessly clever...

No, my dear, I assembled it like the whole book, in bits and pieces and scraps, and occasional bursts of 5000 words at a time. And yes, of course, I want to seem effortlessly clever, though I suspect this blog may have blown my cover there. Anyway, I've deleted the offending sentence in an effort to appear effortless.

Hey ho: back to work!

Why It Takes So Long

As I reach the final stages of my book on the Order of the Garter (6 chapters about to be sent to the publisher; last chapter half-written), I'm tidying up references, and scanning my photos. And as I look at the titles I have just collected from the library, from up and down the Dewey cataloguing scale, it reminds me of why it's taking me so long. I have

Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray

William Empson, The Structure of Complex Words

Harriet Guest, Empire, Barbarism and Civilisation

Crowfoot, et al. Textiles and Clothing, c. 1150-c. 1450.

On my desk at home I have Rachel Holmes' biography of the intersexual doctor, James Barry.

And on my list of things to order and place on hold I have Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Pepys' Diary, and The Last of the Barons, by Edward Bulwer Lytton.

(Also on my desk is a History of the New South Wales Parliament, but that's for another project: quite separate...)

No wonder it's taking me so long to tie all my threads together. It sometimes feels dizzying to be moving across so many centuries and fields. Still, some sections in some chapters now make a satisfying "clunk" sound (like the sound when you check out a library book at Baillieu) when they come to an end. Getting there. Ever closer, every day.

It is of course ridiculous that this great enterprise will score me only a measely 5 points on our research productivity indicator things. But you know what? I don't care. Today, this week, I really like my book.

A Sydney date

Now that it's October, time to give notice of a talk I'll be giving in Sydney later this month for the Australian Heraldry Society: hope to see some Sydneysiders there.

Click to enlarge these two pages of the lovely four-page invitation they have prepared.

Flying like a bat to France

Oh I am happy to be back at work on my Garter book! The real struggle is about to begin, though, as I know in my bones it is time to start taking leave of this material and this project, even though a good chunk of Chapter Four and all of Chapter Seven are completely unwritten; there is still a large amount of revision to be done; I am still a bit hazy about some of the big conceptual ideas at work; and there are pages and pages of archives I'm not reading. That's ok: I long ago reconciled myself to it being ... just not that kind of project. I just have to get my head into the finishing stage. Perhaps I ought to try channeling the advice I so calmly dish out to my graduate students at this stage.

There's a new book out on the Orders of the Garter, Thistle and Bath from 1660-1760 by Antti Matikkala. My copy arrived the other day and I'm relieved to find it's a very serious study of the honours system that will be very useful for me, without really coming close to the kind of work I am doing (or should I say "the work I have done": see above, about taking leave).

I was down in the State Library today, reading John Anstis's 1724 edition of the Garter Register, produced under Henry VIII, including his revised Statutes. It's in Latin, with English, with notes in English, French and Latin. I had looked at this before in the British Library, but deferred a detailed perusal for Melbourne. Which would be fine, except that the State Library could find only one of the two volumes. Oh well. I can read the rest in the Eighteenth-Century Online database, or check it out when I'm in Canberra in November, as the National Library has a copy.

But I did find a lovely, lovely thing, a record in the Register in the sixteenth year of Edward IV's reign, of the King degrading Galhard de Durefort, or Lord Duras, "for that he having deserted him, flying like a Bat over to the Side of the King of France [tanquam vespertilio transfugiens in partes Regis Francorum], had sworn Obedience to him." So there you go: that's your Latin vocabulary for the day (vespertilio, vespertilionis, m. bat). And there's your metaphor for treason (well, presumably, deciding, when the chips were down, to renounce your foreign honour to swear allegiance to your own king) for the day as well.

A few more things like this turned up, too, and just in time, as Chapter Four — my next big writing project — is about Shame and Degradation, or how to get kicked out of the Garter. And what the heralds do with the names of those so degraded. More on this soon.

Update: thanks to Karl for his comment about emblem books. First thing I've found is a cute picture
from an online bestiary with the memorable comment:

A bat is not a noble bird. It is unlike other birds in that it gives birth to live young instead of laying eggs, and it has teeth. Bats gather together and hang from high places like a bunch of grapes; if one falls, all the rest also fall.

If I've followed the links properly, I think this text and illustration might come from the bestiary of Anne Walsh, produced circa 1400-25. But the emphasis on the bat's ignobility would certainly be relevant here. Thanks, Karl!

Second update: I found a fable in which the bat fights first with the birds, then goes over to the mammals, though the birds eventually win. So that's another obvious context:

A great conflict was about to come off between the Birds and the Beasts. When the two armies were collected together the Bat hesitated which to join. The Birds that passed his perch said: "Come with us"; but he said: "I am a Beast." Later on, some Beasts who were passing underneath him looked up and said: "Come with us"; but he said: "I am a Bird." Luckily at the last moment peace was made, and no battle took place, so the Bat came to the Birds and wished to join in the rejoicings, but they all turned against him and he had to fly away. He then went to the Beasts, but soon had to beat a retreat, or else they would have torn him to pieces. "Ah," said the Bat, "I see now. He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends."

But this text, Mastering Aesop, by Edward Wheatley, offers a slightly different telling. After the birds win the battle, the bat is then denuded and forced to fly only at night. Follow the link to an exegesis which has the birds representing Christians and the quadrupeds gentiles or Jews; and the bat as, indeed, Judas. "Stripped of his pelt"? = "deserted by the clothing of innocence". Poor old Galhard!

Fragments I Have Shored Against My Ruin

On the day before his execution, Charles I called his two youngest children to him: Princess Elizabeth, aged thirteen and Henry, Duke of Gloucester, aged nine. He took young Henry on his knee and suggested he never let them make him king, as they would then cut off his head. The child replied, "I will be torn to pieces first".

Charles then shared with the children his last remaining wealth: "diamonds and jewels, most part broken Georges and Garters" which he had secreted "in a little cabinet ... closed with three seals".

The pathos of this scene is immense. It is both ordinary (jewels and garters and necklaces almost always break, eventually) and exemplary of the greater break in the body, and in the traditions of the monarchy that would follow the next day. In my draft of chapter five, I wrote today: "don’t we all have a supply of broken jewellery we neither repair nor discard?" I'm leaving that stand for the moment, but can I really get away with that question in my draft? Is this making my book appear too casual? Or is it the personal voice that we all crave?

It's resonant today, too, as I have been to the jeweller's today, the wonderful Robyn at Small Space Jewellery, to seek some repairs. The white gold and blue topaz earrings I bought in Beechworth last year need reinforcing, and the beautifully light beaten gold earrings Paul brought back from Beirut need gold hooks, not whatever metal was used by the man on the street stall. I've also been to the shoemaker's today, for some repairs on some boots, including the brown leather cowgirl boots I bought in London in 1982. What is it about imminent travel that sends me to these artisans, to repair and renew my accoutrements?

But what a moment for mortality. All those odd things lying around the house, waiting for repair, or use. Or in Charles's case, the detritus of office, the residue, the remainder, the fragments shored against his ruin.

OK. Enough mortality for now. It's Friday night: time for pizza, good red wine, lollies, and a movie, then falling asleep listening to the cricket from South Africa. Bliss!

Royals and ribbons: public and private

There is an article in today's Age about the young princes signing the condolence book for the victims of the Victorian bushfires at the Australian Commission in London. They are wearing yellow ribbons*:

*Photo is attributed to Getty Images: I'm never sure about rights and issues of reproduction here. I wrote to associated press before Christmas for permission to use an image of the Queen in her garter robes and haven't heard back yet, so I'm assuming these big companies don't care when their images are so widely available. Will take this down if anyone objects....

The article goes on to report that the princes "promised privately not to remove them before the Ashes series is over". Fantastic! Just like the Garter, really. The Ashes? cricket test series between Australia and England. So named after the first occasion Australia beat England, and the stumps were burned and preserved in a tiny, now exceedingly fragile urn as a trophy for England, to remind them of the day they were subdued by their colony.

What part of this promise is "private", then? And will we truly see them wearing yellow ribbons throughout the cricket season? And how do we read royal emotion? The report says the princes "expressed deep shock and sadness" about the fires, but then goes on to talk about Harry, "jovial and relaxed" making the "quip" about the summer cricket.

This little report encapsulates much of the fascination with the Order of the Garter, and the much-discussed story of its origins (woman drops garter; courtiers laugh at her; king puts garter on own leg and promises to found a chivalric order all those now laughing will want to join): the way it teases us with the possibility of access to the private emotion of public figures; the playfulness of royalty and its love of making symbols. It's also a reminder of how ribbons and garters (or green girdles [Gawain]) function, too.

And can I just say, for the record., that it started raining at 8.30 this morning, and it's still going, though it's very light. I think this is only the second time this year we've had any rain. The roof tiles are so dry it's taking a while for there to be any run-off, but I'm hoping the tanks might start to fill. It's great as we gear up for another horror day of heat and wind on Friday. Hope it won't be as bad as Black Saturday. Best description of the weather that day? The emergency services co-ordinator who said he was out at midday, as the temperature climbed to 47C, before the fires had really got doing, and knew we were in for horror when the wind was hotter than the sun.

Discipline and Silk Stockings (but not what you might think)

This is the first week of my six month sabbatical. That sabbatical will be followed by long service leave and annual leave, taking me up to Christmas this year. Some of that time will be spent on holidays and taking a break, but much of it will be spent working, of course. Two books to finish; and a couple of other projects clamouring for attention, too.

This week I've taken delivery of a new sofa for my study at home; re-arranged the furniture to make room for the sofa; and nearly got to the bottom of the piles of papers and files, sorting and putting them away: a job at which I am truly dreadful.

There are lots of little things to do still, like booking my ticket to the US, and writing a new subject to teach in 2010. But I'm now ready to start going through all my files on the Garter project, and making sure anything that needs to go in goes in in the right place in the right chapter. I want to get this done in the five weeks before I leave for Philadelphia, so I don't have to take the files with me, and so I can just concentrate on starting to write the last chapter and revise the whole ms. while I'm away.

It's sometimes hard, doing it this way, not least because this material is so fantastic, that everything clamours to go in. But I've learnt from past experience how easy it is to clog up a book with detail that isn't strictly necessary. Often, in the kind of long-range projects I like to grapple with, such detail is wonderfully new to me, but quite familiar to historians of the sixteenth or eighteenth century, for example.

But that's why I'm glad I have this blog! So, for example, there is no room in my chapter on fashion, but there is room on the blog, for the information, from Stow, that in 1560 Mistress Mountague gave Queen Elizabeth a pair of black knit silk stockings, which she had made herself. The Queen liked them so much, their 'pleasant, fine, and delicate' appearance, that she never wore cloth hose again.

On the other hand, the import of the fashion for knitted silk hose from Spain does go into the chapter because Henry VIII really liked them too; and they would have made the Garter look fantastic. So all those portraits of long white legs and garters are probably indebted in part to this fashion and the use of silk instead of wool for knitted stockings. All part of the popularity of the Garter in its belegged form in the early sixteenth century, because you'd be much more likely to show off your leg in its new silk than its old woven cloth hose (cut on the cross and with a seam up the back).

Later on in this article, by Joan Thirsk, "'The Fantastical Folly of Fashion': The English Stocking Knitting Industry, 1500-1700," in Textile History and Economic History: Essays in Honour of Miss Julia de Lacy Mann, edited by N. B. Harte and K. G. Ponting (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1973), there's another fantastic reference to a debate from textile history.

William Lee, a curate of Sherwood, had invented a frame to make knitting easier, and applied to the Queen for a royal patent to knit wool stockings on it. She refused, and the story persisted in oral memory till it was written down in 1831 that this was a merciful resistance to technology that would have impoverished her poor subjects. But Elizabeth had urged Lee, instead, to perfect a method of knitting silk stockings that the wealthy would have purchased.

This is the kind of textual and historical knot (get it?) I just love untangling. But just because I love it doesn't mean it can be fitted into the book.

Discipline, Stephanie! Discipline!

Conference blogging/Hobart/Two

Conference blogging. Meant to do this over the last week, but am now going to do it in several posts. This is the second. Scroll up and down for more.

One of the conference receptions was held at Government House, a beautiful example of colonial gothic in golden sandstone, high up in the Domain, overlooking the city. We had to pre-register for this in order to receive our gold-embossed invitations; and had to dress up a little; and practice saying "Your Excellency" in case we got introduced.

It was a beautiful afternoon.

We all lined up to be introduced:
And did a little Garter research as we waited:
We were then shown into this rather odd hall:

The decorations were suitably vice-regal:















And the guests suitably elegant:

This is my favourite photo:

And here is The Dress:


But after all this finery, here is one of the prettiest images: a little cottage in the grounds, which I have made my computer's desktop for a while....

One Garter or Two?

OK, all you eagle-eyed costume historians and dedicated followers of fashion, what is the courtier on the right wearing around his leg? It's a garter, yes, but is it The Garter? It has an unusually long pendant which makes me think it's more like a kind of decorative garter, especially as the right, white-hosed leg of the same man seems to have a similar garter. (From what I have seen so far, medieval Garters don't seem to have a matching, plainer band on the other leg, though this was the convention later on.)

Note how his elegant footwear extends across the frame of the picture...


This is from a MS of Philippe de Mézières’ Epistre au roi Richart, British Library Royal MS 20 B Vl, f.2, detail (c. 1395-6). I haven't seen this manuscript discussed in any Garter contexts, which is interesting because if it's not thought to be The Garter, then it's evidence that decorative garters were fashionable in Richard's court. But perhaps it is a Garter: no reason why it couldn't have a long pendant, after all.

I've finished drafting Chapter Six (hooray for me!), and am just starting the long haul through all my badly organised files to fill in all the gaps before I start drafting Chapter Seven then re-doing all those early chapters. So I will have fun problems about deciding where to put all my juicy little snippets. For example, the Queen's driving mascot is a silver model of St George (the Garter's patron saint) slaying the Dragon, and it is transferred from car to car. What a weird world it is.

Zuleika Dobson

I've been reading this hilarious novel, first published in 1911. It tells the story of the young Duke of Dorset, an Oxford undergraduate who is also a Knight of the Garter, who falls in love with Zuleika, the niece of the Warden of Judas College. After a desultory career as a governess, moving from family to family as the young men in each household invariably fall wildly and unsuitably in love with her, she steals one such young man’s box of party magic tricks, and establishes herself with great success in the music-hall world. She has never felt love for any of her many conquests, until the Duke of Dorset ignores her on her triumphant entry into Oxford. When, over the course of the next day, it becomes clear that he does in fact love her, she is repelled, and dismisses him, refusing his vast fortune and estates.

In despair, the Duke says he will drown himself for love of her, at which news she is delighted, and wants to make sure only that he will call out her name as he plunges into the river after the boat race. Hundreds of other youths make the same pledge, and the Duke’s attempts to dissuade them to no avail. On the morning of the fateful day, the Duke tries on his Garter robes one last time, and is so captivated by his magnificent appearance in the mirror that he decides to take his last fatal walk in them. Once the boat race is finished, he appears to hesitate before taking the final step, but it starts to rain, and fearing becoming a sorry, soggy, bedraggled lump of heron and ostrich feathers, the Duke plunges in to the river. His Garter mantle floats a while on the surface before finally sinking along with its wearer. Hundreds of other young men similarly drown themselves. We last see Zuleika asking her maid to commission a special train to Cambridge.

The story does so much lovely work for me: it describes the black japanned boxes in which the Garter robes arrive in London, and the "octoradiant star"; it has a scene where the Duke impatiently dresses himself in his robes; and it has this gem of a line: “It was only in those too rarely required robes that he had the sense of being fully dressed.” Beautiful! Fits my theory of the Garter as Derridean supplement: that which is added to the courtly body; but the thing which makes the ungartered body seem incomplete.

I have a folio edition with a few of Beerbohm's illustrations. I've recalled the Baillieu library's copy of the fully illustrated text; and am hoping soon to check out the edition in our rare book collection with Osbert Lancaster's drawings, too.

I love my work!

It's spring, but I'm sick

There is a very nasty cold doing the rounds of my family, friends and workplace, to which I have now succumbed. It's described as having a kick in the tail, as it tends to come back and back. Joel's gone a couple of rounds with it; and I have spent much of the last week in bed. For the first few days I must have been a bit feverish, as my skin felt it was made of hot paper. I still feel I have to drink gallons of water a day just to stay three-dimensional.

On Thursday I managed to get out of bed and assembled myself to go to the Lyceum club, to give a talk on Women and the Order of the Garter. I excused myself from the lunch, fearing I would use all my voice up in conversation, and have nothing left for the lecture, but this was such a shame, as the women I did meet after the talk were all really interesting. It's a beautiful club. I'd been there at night, but during the day the lounges were flooded with natural light. I was speaking to the History Circle, but there are lots of other groups and activities within the club. I can see all kinds of reasons for having a women's club; and this one has an extraordinary location tucked away in the heart of the city. Its walls are covered with original artworks; its tables with fresh flowers; and its plates with lovely food.

I was sorry I wasn't feeling better, though. I would have liked to make more of an effort with my ... toilette: the best I could do was make sure I had an embroidered handkerchief instead of a clutch of tissues. My friend Paula came along for support and I was so pleased she did, but again, I was sorry I wasn't in a more performative mode. Adrenaline got me out of bed and onto the tram, and up behind the lectern, but I would have loved to have been able to present my talk with a bit more oomph, especially for Paula to see. We have a mutual friend who's been much in the news lately through his leadership of the Australian team working on the Large Hadron Collider, and so I've been thinking again about what happens when our research meets the community, and how hard it is to explain technical research to a general audience.

And I might have anticipated something of this kind in such an environment, but after my talk, I was introduced to the wife of a Garter Knight! A reminder I must try and set up an interview with the man himself.

Anyway, the talk just about did for me, and I spent most of yesterday back in bed. This morning I determined to start building up energy again, and pushed myself to do about half of my usual walk along the river. When I got to Ceres, though, I was feeling a bit faint, so I lay down on the bench to recover my strength. I was nearly home again when I realised my keys had dropped out of my pocket, so I had to go back for them, and ended up doing a huge walk. The trouble is, my cold has now gone down to the bottom of my lungs, which now make a dreadful crackling sound when I cough. It also hurts, as I think I've pulled a muscle in my coughing. I've said I'll be back at work next week, but that might be a bit optimistic. I'm a great believer in not spreading disease around the workplace...

Saturday Garter prose blogging

Oh well. In line with my theory that blogging is the perfect example of the pleasure principle at work in the life and time-management of a busy academic, it'd be no fun if we kept all the rules all the time.

So yesterday was a day for running round. In the morning, two completely ridiculous examiners' meetings, where we struggle vainly and furiously (in both senses) to make our marks and grades fit the straitjacket of faculty and university requirements about averages, spreads and distributions of grades, etc. while also making sure we protect the postgraduate scholarship chances of our best honours students. Then a dash to the hairdresser where I fell asleep during the head massage. Bliss! And for the second time in my life had my hair ironed...

Then drinks for a colleague who's just been promoted — congratulations, Nikos! — then dinner with friends, then back to pick up Joel from the house of our normal Friday night companions. We'd had a lovely meal, but still sank into their chairs and started wondering when they were going to order pizza.

Anyway, no time yesterday to blog, and today is a prose day. Here's an extract from Virginia Woolf's Orlando. I had forgotten about this moment till I was scanning around the blogs the other day and came across this image:

‘Come!’ she said. She was sitting bolt upright beside the fire. And she held him a foot’s pace from her and looked him up and down. Was she matching her speculations the other night with the truth now visible? Did she find her guesses justified? Eyes, mouth, nose, breast, hips, hands—she ran them over; her lips twitched visibly as she looked; but when she saw his legs she laughed out loud. He was the very image of a noble gentleman. But inwardly? She flashed her yellow hawk’s eyes upon him as if she would pierce his soul. The young man withstood her gaze blushing only a damask rose as became him. Strength, grace, romance, folly, poetry, youth—she read him like a page. Instantly she plucked a ring from her finger (the joint was swollen rather) and as she fitted it to his, named him her Treasurer and Steward; next hung about him chains of office; and bidding him bend his knee, tied round it at the slenderest part the jewelled order of the Garter. Nothing after that was denied him. When she drove in state he rode at her carriage door. She sent him to Scotland on a sad embassy to the unhappy Queen. He was about to sail for the Polish wars when she recalled him. For how could she bear to think of that tender flesh torn and that curly head rolled in the dust? She kept him with her. At the height of her triumph when the guns were booming at the Tower and the air was thick enough with gunpowder to make one sneeze and the huzzas of the people rang beneath the windows, she pulled him down among the cushions where her women had laid her (she was so worn and old) and made him bury his face in that astonishing composition—she had not changed her dress for a month—which smelt for all the world, he thought, recalling his boyish memory, like some old cabinet at home where his mother’s furs were stored. He rose, half suffocated from the embrace. ‘This’, she breathed, ‘is my victory!’—even as a rocket roared up and dyed her cheeks scarlet.

There are a couple of instances where we know the Queen did tie the garter on with her own hands, as a sign of special favour, but it's extremely rare to see this portrayed visually. In fact, I know of only one other illustration of a monarch, whether Edward III or anyone else, tying the Garter on anyone else's knee. The example I have is a book for children, with a drawing of the original moment of Edward tying the Countess's garter on his own knee (The Story of St George's Chapel, 1981). I'd love to know if anyone else has ever seen an illustration of the monarch kneeling.

The other reason this moment from the movie is so cool is because it is so ... queer. Quentin Crisp cross-dresses as Elizabeth to tie the Garter on the knee of Tilda Swinton cross-dressed as Orlando, who will later become female. I'm going to write a section in Chapter Six called "The Queer Garter" and will use this moment as the starting-point for thinking about Dinshaw's queer historicism and what it might mean for the Order's medievalism. I'm not saying I've done any of the thinking about this yet; I'm just saying I've got a juicy bit of text to talk about.

Friday Garter Poetry Blogging: A Nuptial Ring

I'm willing to bet my entire fortune (heh) that whoever invented blogging did not conceive it would be used to disseminate poems written about the Order of the Garter. And who amongst us would have thought the genre would be so much fun?

Today's poem comes from the reign of James I. It's memorable for its excruciating syntax — "Catcht up the ribbon had a leg imbract/That never capor’d with a step unchast"; its unabashed avowal of the Order's homosocial bonds being like marriage — "A poesye in’t, as in a nuptiall ring"; and for its triumphal protestantism: "God keepe our King and them from Rome’s black pen".


The Originall and Continuance of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, as it was Spoken before the King’s Majestie on Saint George’s Day Last, anno domn. 1616. By W.Fennor.

Edward the Third, that truly potent King,
Whose temples worthily wore England’s Crowne,
This Noble Order, of whose fame I’ll sing,
Invents for Britaine’s trophy of renowne.
Salsburie’s Countesse hath all Ladies grac’t
That loose their garter, yet keepe honour chast.

From honor’d chastitie the Garter fell,
And in a moment rose to Royaltie;
King Edward grac’t this Ladie’s favour well,
Who humbly bends his Kingly Majesty,
Catcht up the ribbon had a leg imbract
That never capor’d with a step unchast.

The Lady dies her cheekes with tell-tale redde,
Which blabs she blushes that her garter’s found,
By him that had advanct it to a head
Which with Imperiall dignity was crown’d;
The Nobles murmur, and the King, by chance
Perceived, spoke, Hony soit qui mal y pense!

Exchanges lawlesse love for lawfull armes,
Buckles on armour, weells [wields] his warlike sword,
Beats his brac’t drums, with trumpets sounds alarms;
Thus like old Hector rode he to the field,
Subdued his foes, and for his deeds in fight,
Of the rich Garter was instal’d a Knight.

Which bred such luster in each noble brest,
As if new Troy had mustred up the sonnes
Of strong-back’t Priam, and amongst the rest,
The bold Blacke Prince to th’ field most fiercely runs,
And with his sword hammer’d in Vulcan’s forge,
Made the French Dennys kneele to English George.

For which he with the Garter was instal’d,
And made a Knight of that most Noble Order;
With many other Nobles that were call’d
Worthy by Fame, that ancient true recorder.
The Garter bred such luster in great hearts,
Each strove for excellence in armes and arts.

Saint Patrick’s Crosse did to the Garter vayle,
Saint Jaques’ Order was with anger pale;
Saint David’s leeke began to droupe i’th’tale [tail] ,
Saint Dennys he sate mourning in a dale;
Saint Andrew lookt with cheereful appetite,
As though to th’Garter he had future right.

But dragon-killing George, that still depends
Upon the Garter since Third Edward’s dayes,
In this age present hath as many friends,
As well deserving high eternall praise;
As many ages ever had before,
Never at one time better, never more.

Hannibal strove for Rome’s triumphant bayes,
Scipio for the Carthaginians’ bough;
But thanklesse Senators did dimme the rayes
Of these two worthies, and would not allow,
Nor wreath, nor branch; they died and left their fame.
Unto the glory of the Garter’s name.

Impartially a Royall King bestowes, it,
Upon some subject worthy of the wearing;
His armes advanct within a church that owes it,
The oath administred in publique hearing,
Which being falsifyed, the Honor’s crost
By heraldry, the Armes and Garter lost.

Say that a man long languishing in love,
Whose heart with hope and feare grows cold and warme;
Admit some pitty should his sweethearte move,
To knit a favour on his feeble arme;
All parts would joyne to make that one joint strong,
To oppose any that his love should wrong.

The Garter is the favour of a King,
Clasping the leg on which man’s best part stands;
A poesye in’t, as in a nuptiall ring,
Binding the heart to their liege Lord in bands;
That whilst the leg hath strength, or the arme power,
To kill that serpent would their King devoure.

For which the George is as a trophy worne,
And may it long, and long remaine with those,
Which to that excellent dignitie are borne,
As opposites unto their country’s foes.
God keepe our King and them from Rome’s black pen,
Let all that love the Garter say, Amen!

Garter curtain ties

I'm replying to Highly Eccentric's comment on the previous post in a new post, as I wanted to show some pictures. This is Edward, Prince of Wales, from Bruges' Garter Book of c. 1430, with a much older version of the ties holding the mantle:



And then by Charles I's time, they had become so long (especially on a young man: here he is as Duke of York) they had to be looped up into his sword belt:



At the Restoration, Charles II regularised the Garter "underhabits" with "the old trunkhose" of cloth of silver, which persisted at least until Edward VIII's time (shown here as Prince of Wales, complete with enormous ties):



And yes, you are right that the blue ribbon is worn when the full robes aren't being worn. The image of St George on a ribbon is called "the lesser George", and replaces the big chain, or collar, with the little model of George killing the dragon you can see hanging on William's chest in the previous post. By 1508, it was recognised that this collar was to be worn only on feastdays, and "on the other days the image of St George shall be worn at the end of a little gold chain, or in time of war; sickness or on a long journey, at the end of a silk lace or ribbon." In the early seventeenth century, it became customary to put it over the left shoulder and under the right armpit, "for conveniency of riding or action" in Ashmole's words. You sometimes see this in portraits that emphasise the military accomplishments of the knights.

As ever, I'm indebted to Peter Begent and Hubert Chesshyre's authoritative book, The Most Noble Order of the Garter: 600 Years, published by Spink in 1999, for many of these details.

Life in the OG

One of the things I love thinking about with the Order of the Garter is the slightly uncomfortable effect of dressing up. The Queen's recent encounter with Annie Liebovitz touched this nerve; and there is always something "lunatic" about the Order and its pageantry (the word is the Duke of Edinburgh's).

So I was delighted when C sent me this link to a bunch of pictures of Prince William's recent investiture with the Order, with this wonderful moment of abashedness across the young Prince's face:



There is also a lovely shot of some royal women, and Prince Harry, who aren't members of the Order, smiling and waving at the others: is there a soupçon of mockery in those smiles?



I'm also fascinated in Baroness Thatcher's dress, very similar to the gown the Queen and Princess Anne wear under their Garter robes. Has this become, by default, the women's Garter uniform? In August, I start writing my chapter on dress and fashion and costume in the Order: will need this photo again then!

Edward's Silk or Richard's Leather? Friday Garter Poetry Blogging

While the traditional story about Edward III picking up the garter of the Countess of Salisbury (or the Queen, or some other woman) persists in English tradition, there has long been a rival theory, propounded by those who cannot accept that a military and chivalric order can have been organised around such a chance encounter, and such a "mean" item. Accordingly, it is often proposed that Edward was reviving a tradition that dates back to Richard I at the siege of Acre. Wanting to encourage his knights to further heights of courage, he is said to have promised to found an Order around a strap of leather or a buckle, perhaps, that he would take as a symbol of chivalric brotherhood. Of course this actually repeats the pattern of elevating a trivial object to symbolic greatness, through the masterful exercise of sovereign power; but it does have the advantage of displacing the messy world of women's underclothes.

In 1631, Charles Allen, writing The Battailes of Crescey and Poictiers under the Leading of King Edward the Third of That Name; and His Sonne Edward Prince of Wales, was cheerfully insouciant about the origins of the Order.


Yet in the raigne of this first sonne of Mars,
All is not sternely rugged, some delights
Sweete amorous sports to sweeten tarter-wars,
And then a dance began the garter Knights.
They dwell with love, that are with vallour fild,
And Venus doves may in a head peice build

As Sarum beauteous Countesse in a dance
Her loosened garter unawares let fall,
Renouned Edward tooke it up by chance,
Which gave that order first originall.
Thus saying to the wondring standers by.
There shall be honour to this silken ty

Some the beginning from first Richard bring,
(Counting too meanelie of this pedegree)
When he at Acon tyde a leather string
About his Soldiars legges, whose memorie
Might stir their vallour up, yet choose you whether
You’ll Edwards silke prefer, or Richards leather.