First, there was the Grand Cross of the Bath (G. C. B.), the reward of military and diplomatic services. The second class, of Knights Commanders (C. B.), was open to those meritorious persons who had the good luck to hold commissions not below the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel or Post-Captain. The members of this class rank above the ordinary knights-bachelors. The third class, of Knights Companions, was instituted for officers holding inferior commissions to those named above, and whose services in their country’s cause rendered them eligible for admission. These arrangements have been somewhat modified subsequently, and not without reason. Henry VIIth’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey is the locality in which the installation of the different knights takes place. The statutes of the order authorize the degradation of a knight “convicted of heresy against the Articles of the Christian religion;” or who has been “attainted of high treason,” or of “cowardly flying from some field of battle.” It is rather curious that felony is not made a ground of degradation. The Duke of Ormond was the last Knight of the Garter who was degraded, for treason against George I. Addison, after the degradation, invariably speaks of him as “the late Duke.” A more grievous offender than he was that Earl of Somerset, who had been a reckless page, and who was an unworthy Knight of the Garter, under James I. He was convicted of murder, but he was not executed, and to the day of his death he continued to wear the Garter, of which he had been pronounced unworthy. The last instances of degradation from the Order of the Bath were those of Lord Cochrane (in 1814), for an alleged misdemeanor, and Sir Eyre Coote, two years subsequently. In these cases the popular judgment did not sanction the harsh measures adopted by those in authority.[1] [1] Subsequently, the Prince Regent ordered the name of Captain Hanchett to be erased from the roll of the Bath, he having been struck off the list of Captains in the Royal Navy. In olden times, the new Knights of the Bath made as gallant display in public as the Knights of the Garter. In reference to this matter, Mr. Mackenzie Walcott, in his “Westminster,” cites a passage from an author whom he does not name. The reverend gentleman says: “On Sunday, July 24th, 1603, was performed the solemnity of Knights of the Bath riding honorably from St. James’s to the Court, and made show with their squires and pages about the Tilt-yard, and after went into the park of St. James, and there lighted from their horses and went up into the King’s Majesty’s presence, in the gallery, where they received the order of Knighthood of the Bath.” The present “Horse-Guards” occupies a portion of the old Tilt-yard; but for the knightly doings there, and also in Smithfield, I must refer all curious readers to Mr. Charles Knight’s “Pictorial History of London.”