The great Duke of Schomberg, that admirable warrior given to England by the tyranny of Louis XIV., was the first person invested with the Garter by William III. The other foreign knights invested by him were the first King of Prussia, William Duke of Zell, the Elector of Saxony, William Bentinck (Earl of Portland), Von Keppel (Earl of Albemarle), and George of Hanover (our George I.) Here the alien knights, not of sovereign degree, again outnumbered those who _were_ of that degree. The Elector of Saxony refused to join William against France, unless the Garter were first conferred on him. Anne conferred the Garter on Meinhardt Schomberg, Duke of Leinster, son of the great Schomberg; and also on George Augustus of Hanover (subsequently George II. of England). Anne intimated to George Louis, the father of George Augustus, that, being a Knight of the Garter, he might very appropriately invest his own son. George Louis, however, hated that son, and would have nothing to do with conferring any dignity upon him. He left it with the commissioners, Halifax and Vanbrugh, to act as they pleased. They performed their vicarious office as they best could, and that was only with “maimed rights.” George Louis, with his ordinary spiteful meanness, ordered the ceremony to be cut short of all display. He would not even permit his son to be invested with the habit, under a canopy as was usual, and as had been done in his own case; all that he would grant was an ordinary arm-chair, whereon the electoral prince might sit in state, if he chose, or was able to do so! These were the only foreigners upon whom Anne conferred the Garter; an order which she granted willingly to very few persons indeed. “It is remarkable,” says Nicolas, “that the order was not conferred by Queen Anne upon the Emperor, nor upon any of the other sovereigns with whom she was for many years confederated against France. Nor did her Majesty bestow it upon King Charles III. of Spain, who arrived in England in September, 1703, nor upon Prince Eugene (though, when she presented him with a sword worth five thousand pounds sterling on taking his leave in March, 1712 there were seven vacant ribands), nor any other of the great commanders of the allied armies who, under the Duke of Marlborough, gained those splendid victories that rendered her reign one of the most glorious in the annals of this country.” George I. had more regard for his grandson than for his son; and he made Frederick (subsequently father of George III.) a Companion of the Order, when he was not more than nine years of age. He raised to the same honor his own brother, Prince Ernest Augustus, and invested both knights at a Chapter held in Hanover in 1711. With this family exception, the Order of the Garter was not conferred upon any foreign prince in the reign of George I.