The Most Honourable Order of the Bath was founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The Order consists of the Sovereign, the Great Master and three Classes of members: Members belong to either the Civil or the Military Division.
About Order of the Bath in brief
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath was founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The Order consists of the Sovereign, the Great Master and three Classes of members: Members belong to either the Civil or the Military Division. Prior to 1815, the order had only a single class, Knight Companion, which no longer exists. Recipients of the Order are now usually senior military officers or senior civil servants. Commonwealth citizens who are not subjects of the Queen and foreign nationals may be made Honorary Members. The prime mover in the establishment of the order was John Anstis, Garter King of Arms, England’s highest heraldic officer. It is clear at least that he set out to make himself indispensable to the Earl Marshal, which was not hard, but also to Sir Robert Walpole and the Whig government. The main object of the move was to revive the Order or the next institution of the Pretender, which can by no means have been easy, considering the circumstances under which he came into office. In the Middle Ages, knighthood was often conferred with elaborate ceremonies. From the coronation of Henry IV in 1399 the full ceremonies were restricted to major royal occasions such as coronations, investitures of the Prince of Wales or Royal dukes, and royal weddings, and the knights so created became known as Knights ofthe Bath.
The last occasion on which Knights ofThe Bath were created was the coronations of Charles II in 1661. The Knights Bachelor continued to be created with the simpler form of ceremony. The motto Tria juncta in uno, and wearing as a badge three crowns within a plain gold oval, is still worn by members of the Civil Division. The ‘three joined in one’ may be a reference to the kingdoms of England, Scotland and either France or Ireland, which were held by English and, later, British monarchs. This would correspond to the three Crowns in the badge. Another explanation of the motto is that it refers to the Holy Trinity. The motto is not entirely clear but it could mean Tria Juncta In uno or Tria numina junct a in uni. It was used from at least 1625, and possibly from the reign of James I, when the motto was Tria Junct in uno and the motto understood to mean Tria juncta in-uno. It may also refer to the ‘three crowns’ worn on the badge, which may have been used to represent the three kingdoms of Scotland, France and Ireland, or the Holy Trinity in the early medieval period. It has been claimed that prior to James I the motto was Tria Numina in uno and the word numina was dropped and the motto was replaced by Tria Juncta. In 1718, when he succeeded at last, he made it his object to aggrandise himself and his office at their expense.
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This page is based on the article Order of the Bath published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
