Word: garters
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Every British schoolboy learns that in 1348 the Countess of Salisbury embarrassingly shed a garter on a crowded, royal ballroom floor. Courtiers tittered but gallant Edward III saved the situation by putting the thing on his left leg, proclaiming, "Honi soit qui mal y pense" (Evil be to him who evil thinks). Thus was inaugurated the Most Noble Order of the Garter, most exalted in the British Knighthood. It is one of two Orders which admit women...
...Duke of Portland; newest, Earl Baldwin-assembled in the Waterloo Chamber of Windsor Castle. Each wore a mantle of dark blue velvet with a crimson hood, a black velvet hat with white ostrich plumes. The only members of the Order who did not wear a gold-encrusted dark-blue garter below the left knee were the two Queens. Instead they wore them on the left...
Solemnly the Most Noble Order of the Garter, headed by the King & Queen, shuffled into place, proceeded to St. George's Chapel-the choir of which is the Garter Chapel-to worship together for the first time in 23 years, the second time in 129. Each knight filed into his own stall over which, during his lifetime, hang his sword, helmet, crest and banner...
Onto the parade ground rode the royal procession. King George came first as Colonel-in-Chief of the Grenadiers, with the bright blue ribbon of the Garter across his chest. Behind rode his aides: the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent, the Earls of Athlone and Harewood and Prince Arthur of Connaught, behind them again, a patchwork of bright color, gilt and jangle, all the foreign military attaches. Passing the balcony of the Horse Guards Building where stood Mary, the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth, King George looked up from under his extinguisher of a busby and smiled. Princess Elizabeth waved...
...thrice Prime Minister of Britain, weighed down with a crimson robe festooned with miniver, had to go thirsty. He was standing just outside the House of Lords fidgeting with a black cocked hat. waiting to be inducted. A thin stream of dignitaries trickled towards him-Sir Gerald Woods Wollaston, Garter Principal King of Arms; the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England; the Earl of Ancaster, Lord Great Chamberlain; the Earl of Derby and the Marquess of Londonderry, two senior peers. They shuffled into position, marched up the aisle towards the woolsack whereon sat Viscount Hailsham, Lord Chancellor, speaker...