when the Sovereign Duke of Burgundy was proposed, under Henry VI., the knights would not go to election until that potentate had declared whether he would accept the honor. His potentiality declared very distinctly that he would not; and he is the first sovereign prince who positively refused to become a knight of the Garter! In the same reign Edward, King of Portugal, was elected in the place of his father, John:--this is one of the few instances in which the honor has passed from father to son. The Duke of Coimbra, also elected in this reign, was of a foreign princely house, but he was not a sovereign prince. He may reckon with the alien knights generally. The Duke of Austria too, Albert, was elected before he came to a kingly and to an imperial throne; and against these princes I may place the name of Gaston de Foix, whom Henry V. had made Earl of Longueville, as that of a simple alien knight of good estate and knightly privileges. One or two scions of royal houses were elected, as was Alphonso, King of Aragon. But there is strong reason for believing that Alphonso declined the honor. There is some uncertainty as to the period of the election of Frederick III., that economical Emperor of Austria, who begged to know what the expenses would amount to, before he would “accept the order.” All the garters not home-distributed, did not go to deck the legs of foreign sovereign princes. Toward the close of the reign we find the Vicomte de Chastillion elected, and also D’Almada, the Portuguese knight of whose jolly installation at the Lion in Brentford, I have already spoken. An Aragonese gentleman, Francis de Surienne, was another alien knight of simply noble quality; he was elected in the King’s bedchamber at Westminster; and the alien knights would more than balance the foreign sovereign princes, even if we throw in Casimir, King of Poland, who was added to the confraternity under the royal Lancastrian.