Garters

One of England's mellowest legends concerns a Countess of Salisbury who found her garter slipping, in the merry, ardent days of Edward III (1312-77). Down and down slipped the garter until it tumbled before the knowing eyes of a pack of smirking courtiers. But Edward III, with instant chivalry, stooped, retrieved the ribbon, tied it just below his own royal knee, and exclaimed to the Courtiers in immortal reproof: "Honi soit qui mal y pense!" (Evil be to him who evil thinks!).

Soon no knightly honor was so prized as membership in the "Society of the Garter," founded by Edward III, circa 1347. Today King-Emperor George V presides over what is now the "Most Noble Order of the Garter;" and last week His Majesty appointed with great pomp three new Garter-Knights.

First is Alexander Augustus Frederick William Alfred George Cambridge, 54, Earl of Athlone, a brother of Queen-Empress Mary, and since 1923 His Majesty's Governor General of the Union of South Africa. All his life he has been a soldier--a smart Hussar, an impeccable Life Guard, and finally, during the South

African and World Wars, a conscientious officer several times cited in despatches. The great honor done him, last week, may perhaps in some small measure distract his grief at the death of his son, Viscount Trematon, recently killed in a motor accident (TIME, April 23).

Gossips remember that the Earl of Athlone subsisted for years as a "poor relation" of British Royalty. Edward VII disliked him and was niggardly about allowing him to live rent-free in a mean suite of rooms at Windsor Castle. Not until his sister became Queen-Empress did his future really brighten. At present his duty is merely to preside impartially, in the Union of South Africa, over the incessant squabbles of the factions headed by Prime Minister James Barry Munnik Hertzog and famed General Jan Christiaan Smuts.

Second of the new Garter-Knights is James Albert Edward Hamilton, 58, Duke of Abercorn, who has earned his reward by faithful and occasional perilous service as the Governor of Northern Ireland since the troublous times of 1922.

Lastly, His Majesty bestowed a blue garter worked with gold, upon William Henry Grenfell, 72, Baron Desborough, now president of the British Imperial Council of Commerce, but in his day a famed climber of the Alps and U. S. Rocky Mountains and a swimmer of such prowess that he twice breasted the Niagara River.*

*Not to be confused with Dr. Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, Master Mariner, first medical of the missionary to Labrador and now Superintendent of the International Grenfell Association operating hospitals, stores, orphanages, schools for fisherman of the far north.