Touchstones for Deterritorializing

Socioecological Learning: The

Anthropocene, Posthumanism and
Common Worlds as Creative Milieux
Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/touchstones-for-deterritorializing-socioecological-lear
ning-the-anthropocene-posthumanism-and-common-worlds-as-creative-milieux-amy-
cutter-mackenzie-knowles/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Young Children s Play and Environmental Education in

Early Childhood Education 1st Edition Amy Cutter-
Mackenzie

https://textbookfull.com/product/young-children-s-play-and-
environmental-education-in-early-childhood-education-1st-edition-
amy-cutter-mackenzie/

Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook Loucas

https://textbookfull.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-
loucas/

Creative Measures of the Anthropocene: Art, Mobilities,

and Participatory Geographies Kaya Barry

https://textbookfull.com/product/creative-measures-of-the-
anthropocene-art-mobilities-and-participatory-geographies-kaya-
barry/

As Big As The Sky 1st Edition Aislin Amy

https://textbookfull.com/product/as-big-as-the-sky-1st-edition-
aislin-amy/
Nature-Based Allied Health Practice : Creative and
Evidence-Based Strategies Amy Wagenfeld

https://textbookfull.com/product/nature-based-allied-health-
practice-creative-and-evidence-based-strategies-amy-wagenfeld/

The Creative Word Canon as a Model for Biblical

Education 2nd Edition Brueggemann

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-creative-word-canon-as-a-
model-for-biblical-education-2nd-edition-brueggemann/

Code as Creative Medium: A Handbook for Computational

Art and Design Golan Levin

https://textbookfull.com/product/code-as-creative-medium-a-
handbook-for-computational-art-and-design-golan-levin/

Atlas of Vanishing Places The Lost Worlds as They Were

and as They Are Today Travis Elborough

https://textbookfull.com/product/atlas-of-vanishing-places-the-
lost-worlds-as-they-were-and-as-they-are-today-travis-elborough/

Common as Air Revolution Art and Ownership First

Edition Hyde

https://textbookfull.com/product/common-as-air-revolution-art-
and-ownership-first-edition-hyde/
Touchstones for
Deterritorializing
Socioecological Learning
The Anthropocene, Posthumanism and
Common Worlds as Creative Milieux
Edited by Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles
Alexandra Lasczik · Judith Wilks
Marianne Logan · Angela Turner
Wendy Boyd
 Touchstones for Deterritorializing
Socioecological Learning
“This important book comes as daily news cycles consistently report “cata-
strophic” events in Earth’s new geostory—the Anthropocene. Amy Cutter-­
Mackenzie-­Knowles and her team of editors gather leading educational thinkers
to contemplate an uncertain future. In the face of epochal change they assert
that we will not adapt by using old habits of mind and old ways of being. As
touchstones, the anthropocene, posthumanism and common worlds guide edu-
cators into a creative learning milieu: examining new relationships with Earth;
permeating boundaries that separate human and more-than-human worlds;
moving beyond stewardship ethics; enacting flatter more equitable ways of
being; developing new forms of literacy to decode today’s world. A vital book for
our times.”
—Professor Emeritus Bob Jickling, Lakehead University, Canada

“Often we come across terms that challenge us to re-think the touchstone ideas
that shape how we can live, think, and be in the world. Terms such as Anthropocene
and Posthumanism are some of the more illuminating and perplexing of our
contemporary world. Having a text that explores these terms set in the contexts
of teaching and learning in our social and ecological challenges has to be useful
and instructive for those who want to re-think (and deterritorialise) the learning
opportunities we frame for our students and ourselves. Thank you to the authors
for coalescing around these obligatory and unpalatable ideas to help us find
intentional acts of resistance and ways towards respecting the interrelationship
of all things.”
—Dr Peta White, Faculty of Education, Deakin University, Australia
 Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-­Knowles
Alexandra Lasczik • Judith Wilks
Marianne Logan
Angela Turner • Wendy Boyd
Editors

Touchstones for
Deterritorializing
Socioecological
Learning
The Anthropocene, Posthumanism
and Common Worlds as Creative
Milieux
Editors
Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles Alexandra Lasczik
School of Education, Sustainability, School of Education, Sustainability,
Environment and the Arts in Education Environment and the Arts in Education
(SEAE) Research Cluster (SEAE) Research Cluster
Southern Cross University Southern Cross University
Bilinga, QLD, Australia Bilinga, QLD, Australia

Judith Wilks Marianne Logan

School of Education, Sustainability, School of Education, Sustainability,
Environment and the Arts in Education Environment and the Arts in Education
(SEAE) Research Cluster (SEAE) Research Cluster
Southern Cross University Southern Cross University
Coffs Harbour, NSW, Australia Bilinga, QLD, Australia
University of Notre Dame
Wendy Boyd
Notre Dame, WA, Australia
School of Education, Sustainability,
Environment and the Arts in Education
Angela Turner
(SEAE) Research Cluster
School of Education, Sustainability,
Southern Cross University
Environment and the Arts in Education
Lismore, NSW, Australia
(SEAE) Research Cluster
Southern Cross University
Coffs Harbour, NSW, Australia

ISBN 978-3-030-12211-9    ISBN 978-3-030-12212-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12212-6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: © Whit Richardson / Getty

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Foreword

In my final year as a secondary school student in the late 1970s in South

Australia I was fortunate enough to be able to study Geology. Mr Ingram’s
classes were as much experiential as they were theoretical. Every class had
us examining rock samples and fossils – studying their crystal structure,
touching (and even tasting) them to try to learn what they were as we
thought about where they came from and what they could teach us. We
handled 500 million year old Cambrian quartzites and made landform
models to look at tectonic plate movements, folding and erosion. We
studied geological eras, periods and epochs. We went into the field on
numerous occasions to learn about specific geological formations and
how the Earth had formed and changed through time. Geology taught us
about Deep Time, that the Earth was always in a state of change, and that
change was a natural process. But geologists also recognised the last ten
thousand years as the Holocene, an epoch in which the impact of humans
through agricultural land use, species extinction and increasing negative
impacts on local ecosystems had begun to change the world. Geologists
are now arguing about whether we have recently entered another epoch
called the Anthropocene, a time when the impact of human activity is so
profound that it is even changing the very nature of the Earth’s processes
and geology.
Since the Industrial Revolution, and especially since World War II, the
world has experienced the Great Acceleration, where humans have
v
vi Foreword

become the dominant species, instigating radical changes to the composi-

tion of the atmosphere, rises in sea levels and sea temperatures and where
wide scale destruction and disturbance of vast ecosystems – even whole
oceans – now occur at a speed not previously evident in the whole geo-
logical record. It now seems routine that daily news coverage will include
stories close to home about wildfire and megastorms, droughts and floods
as well as reports on the meetings of world economic leaders and inter-­
governmental panels to discuss climate change and the now very real
challenges it poses for the future of humanity. So entangled are human-­
induced problems and catastrophes that it seems reasonable to say that
we have entered what we might call the Great Uncertainty. All of us as
individuals, and each profession, are now called upon to respond. So,
what happens when environmental educators and educational research-
ers enter this uncertainty? What arguments must be made, what assump-
tions need disrupting, and how will thinking and practice need to change?
These are absolutely crucial questions, for how we educate the current
and coming generations will surely be amongst the most crucial responses
humans make to the many challenges we face.
This is the territory that the editors and writers of Touchstones for
Deterritorializing Socioecological Learning: The Anthropocene, Posthumanism
and Common Worlds as Creative Milieux have entered. The book com-
mences by carefully examining the Anthropocene, its origins and the
extent of its impacts. The challenges raised here have their parallel in
education, from micro to macro scales; for the individual learner and
teacher through to their society and their supporting ecosystems. The
book develops a searching examination of the ‘saturation of humanism’
and what may be required to clear away persistent assumptions and hab-
its, to make room for new ideas and actions. Readers will be asked to
consider a flattened ontology, where humans are no longer positioned as
the centre. Touchstones for Deterritorializing Socioecological Learning
addresses this possibility from a deeply pedagogical position, discussing
what it might mean for the learner to learn and the educator to educate
in such a common world.
Each chapter of the book examines, provokes and debates aspects and
examples of socioecological learning. The chapters may be read indepen-
dently with detailed discussion that addresses unlearning the dualisms (or
 Foreword vii

delearning as the editors phrase it) that have led to the onset of the
Anthropocene, or an analysis of the lived experience of learners in institu-
tions beset with tensions between creativity and compliance. There is dis-
cussion of the essential characteristics of the socioecological learner and
how this challenges dominant beliefs about voice, authority, decision-­
making. Provocative discussion of Big History, collaborative arts and the
learner as activist will challenge the reader to consider antidisciplinary
boundaries and how to foster more relational approaches and community
connections. But the real power of the book, I feel, is when we gather
these collective provocations, visions and discussions into a larger, coher-
ent and louder pedagogy of hope.
We cannot return to the dawn of the Holocene when, it is argued,
humans first began to live apart from nature as they begun the domestica-
tion of crops and stock. We cannot even return to unmake the steam
engine and curtail the radical trajectory that it launched. But the message
that this book makes most clear is that we can, from today, seek more
ethical relations with our fellow inhabitants on this beautiful, but trou-
bled, planet. Touchstones for Deterritorializing Socioecological Learning will
help us dissemble a human-centric education and raise a new pedagogy
of dwelling with the more than human world – with other species and
the rocks, oceans, ecosystems and atmosphere which we call Earth – our
only home.

Mount Helen, VIC, Australia Brian Wattchow

Author – A Pedagogy of Place: Outdoor Education for a Changing World

and Song of the Wounded River.
Lead Editor – The Socioecological educator: A 21st Century Renewal of
Physical, Health, Environment and Outdoor Education.
 Acknowledgments

The idea of this book sparked at a writing retreat at the Angourie

Rainforest Retreat on the North Coast of Australia in 2016. Huddled
together in a dark, dim-lit cabin the idea took hold as we troubled educa-
tion—what it was, what it could be, what it is for and what we could not
even yet imagine. This led us down a concentrated conversation path
about the focus of our writing at ‘this writing retreat’. The question was
posed ‘what book have you always wanted to write?’ As ideas circulated
with passion, frustration and intensity, sparks knocked together and we
found ourselves immersed in a rich dialogue about socioecological learn-
ing. It was that collective energy and passion of Southern Cross University’s
Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education (SEAE) Research
Cluster that made this book a possibility. The editors and authors are
indebted to its many members for providing reviews, much support and
camaraderie throughout the writing process.
We are especially grateful to the School of Education for its financial
and scholarly support of our writing retreats, which make books like
these imaginable.

ix
 Contents

1 Touchstones for Deterritorializing the Socioecological

Learner  1
Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, Alexandra Lasczik, Marianne
Logan, Judith Wilks, and Angela Turner

2 Posthumanist Learning: Nature as Event 27

Tracy Young and Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles

3 The Socioecological (Un)learner: Unlearning Binary

Oppositions and the Wicked Problems of the Anthropocene 49
Raoul Adam, Hilary Whitehouse, Robert B. Stevenson, and
Philemon Chigeza

4 The Risky Socioecological Learner 75

Judith Wilks, Angela Turner, and Brad Shipway

5 “It is not a question of either/or, but of ‘and … and’”: The

Socioecological Learner as Learner-Teacher-Researcher 99
William E. Boyd

xi
xii Contents

6 The Socioecological Learner in Big History: Post-­

Anthropocene Imageries139
Marilyn Ahearn, Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles,
Brad Shipway, and Wendy Boyd

7 Site/Sight/Insight: Becoming a Socioecological Learner

Through Collaborative Artmaking Practices163
David Rousell, Alexandra Lasczik, Rita L. Irwin, Jemma
Peisker, David Ellis, and Katie Hotko

8 De-imagining and Reinvigorating Learning with/in/as/for

Community, Through Self, Other and Place189
Maia Osborn, Simone Blom, Helen Widdop Quinton, and
Claudio Aguayo

9 Socioecological Learners as Agentic: A Posthumanist

Perspective231
Marianne Logan, Joshua Russell, and Ferdousi Khatun

10 Un/Folding Socioecological Learning: An Aesthetic

Portrayal263
Alexandra Lasczik and Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles

Afterword: Green Shoots in the Shadow275

Index281
 Contributors

Raoul Adam is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Southern

Cross University. He has taught in senior secondary education and lec-
tured extensively in educational psychology, humanities education, edu-
cational philosophy, curriculum and pedagogy. He is a recipient of several
university citations and a national ALTC Award for teaching. Raoul has
an active interest in the teaching-research nexus. His research focuses on
epistemological change and development in cultural contexts. He is espe-
cially interested in models for conceptualising complex social problems.
He has published his research in a monograph, peer reviewed journals
and book chapters, and has presented his work at numerous conferences
and symposia.

Claudio Aguayo is a Senior Research Officer at the Centre for Learning

and Teaching, Auckland University of Technology, where he contributes
to research and development of learning technologies. Claudio is cur-
rently undertaking research projects at the local, national and interna-
tional level in mobile learning, sustainability education, science education,
and educational app development. Claudio’s current interests include the
role of technology in non-formal contexts through affective and emo-
tional dimensions, the innovative use of emerging technologies and peda-
gogies in applied learning and teaching, and embodied enactive cognition
in virtual and augmented spaces.
xiii
xiv Contributors

Marilyn Ahearn recently graduated with her PhD from Southern Cross
University. Her PhD research focused on the impact of teaching Big
History in primary schooling and the extent to which it inform children’s
environmental values. Her child-framed research has implications for
primary education in the nesting of Big History and sustainability into
an inquiry-learning framework. Marilyn is experienced in primary edu-
cation, including roles on school leadership teams and in environmental
education initiatives. She advocates transdisciplinary, socioecological
learning that encompasses sustainability, the Big History story and chil-
dren’s wonder of the universe.

Simone Blom is an educator and researcher, currently undertaking PhD

research into the influence of the education system in the early years on
the child-nature relationship or more correctly, childhoodnature.
Simone’s research interests include posthuman and new materialist
approaches to nature, education and pedagogy. She has been involved in
environmental education across early childhood, primary, secondary and
tertiary sectors for nearly 20 years. She is currently an active member of
the Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education (SEAE)
research cluster and chairs the Lismore Environment Collective at
Southern Cross University.

Wendy Boyd is Senior Lecturer in early childhood education at Southern

Cross University. Wendy’s research focuses on provision of quality early
childhood programs to support the optimal development of all children.
This has cut across parents’ perspectives of early childhood programs; the
effectiveness of the early childhood workforce training; and the provision
of sustainable practices in early childhood education. She has published
37 high impact ERA-eligible publications. She is Editor of New Zealand
International Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, and sits
on the Early Childhood Australia publications committee. Wendy was
25 years in the role of Director of a large long day care centre providing
high quality care at each assessment and rating point. She has worked
with early childhood educators, families, school principals and teachers
to ­implement educational and environmentally appropriate strategies
and practices.
 Contributors xv

William E. Boyd is a Professor of Geography at Southern Cross

University, and is a multi- and trans-disciplinary scholar – a geographer,
archaeologist, landscape scientist and educationalist. He draws on the
geosciences and humanities to inform his teaching and research. He
brings a geographer’s eye to his teaching in environmental management,
social engagement with environment, and cultural heritage. As an educa-
tionalist, he uses reflective and qualitative methods to examine pedagogy,
curriculum and teaching & learning practice. He uses an action learning
approach of early career mentoring and educational leadership, with a
focus on the scholarship of teaching & learning, transdisciplinary team-
based research, and student learning processes. Bill has published widely
in the scholarly literature in all his areas and has co-authored several
books. He holds doctorates from the Universities of Glasgow and St
Andrews and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the
Institute of Australian Geographers.

Philemon Chigeza is an experienced school teacher and academic at

James Cook University. He has a broad interest in the interaction between
cultural and cognitive representation and systems of representation.
Philemon’s earlier research focused on developing capacity building peda-
gogies that affirm students’ lived languages, experiences and knowledge
in their learning. His work explores the notion of agency and students’
negotiation of language and culture in mathematics and science class-
rooms. Philemon’s present research is focused on emerging technology-
based curriculum innovation designed to enhance engagement and
learning, particularly for blended and virtual spaces. Philemon is also
passionate about issues of environmental sustainability and how schools,
electronic media and the home can be productively used to work towards
a more sustainable and just society.

Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles is a Professor of Sustainability,

Environment and Education at Southern Cross University, School of
Education, Australia. She is the Deputy Dean Research & Higher Degree
Research (HDR) Training for the School of Education, as well as the
Research Leader and founder of the Sustainability, Environment and the
Arts in Education (SEAE) Research Cluster. She has led over 30 research
xvi Contributors

projects in environmental education and published 150+ publications

largely centred on ontologies in/as nature through socioecological and
more recently posthumanist theoretical orientations. She has a particular
interest in child-framed arts-based research methodologies, and leads
international research programs in climate change education and child-
hoodnature. Amy has also been recognised for both her teaching and
research excellence in environmental education, including the Australian
Association for Environmental Education Fellowship (Life Achievement
Award) for her outstanding contribution to environmental education
research. She is the co Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of
Environmental Education (AJEE).

David Ellis is a Lecturer in Design and Technology Education who is

currently working on a PhD study in technology education and profes-
sional learning. He loves innovative, eco and human-centered approaches
to design, and sees the classroom as the perfect platform for a disruptive
approach to reducing our ecological footprint. His Master’s degree in
Urban Development & Sustainability inspired an interest in emerging
and disruptive technologies, and alternative approaches to human settle-
ments and adaption. This has caused Dave to consider the role that edu-
cation should play in enabling young people to live more sustainably.
Dave is interested in researching and teaching in areas related to Design,
Maker and Technology Education. He consults in Technology Education
and interdisciplinary related (e.g. STEAM/STEM) issues and projects,
and is the current journal editor of the IIATEJ, a journal for the Institute
of Industrial Arts and Technology Education professional teachers’
association.

Katie Hotko is a self-taught artist specialising in Visual Arts for primary

aged children, and is passionate about children’s access to quality Visual
Arts educational experiences. She is a member of the Sustainability,
Environment and the Arts in Education (SEAE) Research Cluster at
Southern Cross University. Katie is now in her second year of her PhD
exploring Primary Teachers’ self-beliefs about creativity, and how these
beliefs affect their teaching of the Visual Arts. Katie earned First Class
Honours in 2016.
 Contributors xvii

Rita L. Irwin is a Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Art

Education and Curriculum Studies at the University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, Canada. Her research interests include preservice and inser-
vice arts teacher education, artist-in-schools programs, as well as the
intersections between arts education, curriculum studies and socio-cul-
tural issues. Her research involves action research, case study, image-based
research, and many forms of arts-based educational inquiry including
a/r/tography. She is also committed to leadership in arts education, cur-
riculum studies and education organizations, and most notably was the
President of the International Society for Education through Art for two
terms.

Ferdousi Khatun is a recent PhD graduant in the School of Education,

Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education Research Cluster,
Southern Cross University. Her PhD is focussed on Bangladeshi young
people’s ecoliteracy, applying a postcolonial socioecological theoretical
framework. Ferdousi is a chapter author in the Springer major reference
works on Childhoodnature (Cutter-Mackenzie, Malone & Barratt
Hacking, 2019). She also recently contributed to a chapter in the forth-
coming Oxford Handbook on Comparative Environmental Law. In
addition to undertaking her PhD, Ferdousi is a research assistant and
casual academic in the School of Education, Southern Cross University.
She has extensive past experience as a teacher, environmental educator
and botanist in Bangladesh, Nepal and Australia.

Alexandra Lasczik is Associate Professor, Arts and Education at

Southern Cross University, Australia and Deputy Leader and founder of
the Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education Research
Cluster (SEAE). She is deeply interested in movement both as a research
practice and as a thematic in her work. Most recently, this has encom-
passed contemporary and historic migrations, Arts education and Arts-
based educational research through embodied practices of painting,
performance, creative writing and visual poetics. As a secondary teacher
of some 25 years’ experience and as a teacher educator for the past 6 years,
Alexandra is profoundly committed to service, advocacy and activism on
behalf of children and the need for highly engaging Arts learning experi-
xviii Contributors

ences in schools. She is currently Chair, Arts-Based educational Research

Special Interest Group [ABERSIG] for the American Educational Research
Association [AERA] and is past Editor of Australian Art Education Journal
and past World Councillor (SEAPAC Region) for the International
Society of Education through Art [InSEA].

Marianne Logan is a Lecturer at Southern Cross University and is one

of the founding members of the Sustainability, Environment and the Arts
in Education (SEAE) Research Cluster. She is passionate about inspiring
learners in science, sustainability and the environment and providing
platforms for their voices to be heard. Areas that have been the focus of
Marianne’s research include school students’ attitudes to, and interest in,
science and school/university partnership programs in teacher education.
Marianne’s recent research involves child/youth framed, arts- based
research, including involvement in: ‘Young People Inspiring Awareness
of, and Action towards, their Local Natural Ecosystem’ relating to rain-
forests in Australia; an Australian Geographic funded research project,
‘Youth4Sea’, relating to marine debris (with Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles
and Lasczik); and ‘Empowering Young People to Engage with Mt
Tamborine Landcare Reserves’ (with Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles and
Lasczik). Marianne has published widely in international research jour-
nals and edited texts and is a section editor for the Research Handbook on
Childhoodnature: Assemblages of Childhood and Nature Research.

Judith McNeill is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the University

of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia. She is an eco-
logical economist who has spent 20 years teaching and researching in
economics. She has published in areas such as climate change adaptation;
carbon taxes; energy policies; the funding of social infrastructure and
local government. She is now particularly interested in research which
revises the economics curricula towards teaching a macroeconomics that
respects the biophysical limitations to e­ conomic growth, rejects extreme
inequality of incomes and understands the consequences of recent irregu-
lar monetary policies. Prior to academic life, Judith worked in the public
service in federal and state Treasuries, the Parliamentary Library and the
intelligence services.
 Contributors xix

Maia Osborn is a primary school teacher, PhD candidate and member

of the Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education
(SEAE) Research Cluster at Southern Cross University. Maia’s research
explores the philosophies, pedagogies and practices of environmentally
conscious primary school teachers, with a specific focus upon how and
why they utilise community partnerships to enrich environmental educa-
tion. Through this research Maia seeks to advance social ecology with
consideration of posthumanism and community psychology. Maia’s
childhood experiences living on a sustainable farm strongly influence her
interests, research and practice.

Jemma Peisker is an artist, researcher and teacher deeply committed to

education in Australia. She is a Doctor of Philosophy candidate in the
School of Education at Southern Cross University and member of the
Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education (SEAE) Research
Cluster. Jemma has taught in South East Queensland schools for 11 years
as a Senior Visual Arts teacher and has a Graduate Diploma of Education,
a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Honours in Fine Arts and Bachelor of Education
Honours (First Class). For her Honours work, Jemma was awarded the
Southern Cross University Medal for research in 2015 and received the
Australian Postgraduate Award for her Doctoral studies in 2016. Her
research uses Arts-based educational research methodologies, and has a
focus on the primacy of material engagement in the Visual Arts. She spe-
cifically investigates the way bodily activity, cultural practices and trans-
formations in material culture can positively affect students and their
learning outcomes.

David Rousell is Research Fellow in the recently established Centre for

Biosocial Research on Learning and Behaviour at Manchester
Metropolitan University. He is currently working with a team of
­interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners in the development of
experimental research initiatives spanning the arts, humanities, and sci-
ences. David’s recent research and artistic practice has focused on creating
multi-sensory and immersive cartographies of learning environments
that are responsive to the changing material conditions of contemporary
life. David has exhibited his artwork in galleries, museums, and public
xx Contributors

spaces around the world, and his research has been published in the
International Journal of Education Through Art, the Australian Journal of
Environmental Education, the International Journal of Qualitative Studies
in Education, and Multi-­Disciplinary Research in the Arts. He recently
edited a book section entitled ‘Ecological Aesthetics and the Learning
Environment’ for the International Research Handbook on Childhoodnature
(Springer).

Joshua Russell is an Assistant Professor in Animal Behavior, Ecology,

and Conservation as well as Anthrozoology at Canisius College.
His research broadly looks at humans’ lived relationships with various
animals and the more-than-human world. He is particularly interested in
children’s relationships with animals, connections between animal studies
and environmental education research/practice, as well as queer experi-
ences of animality and nature. Joshua lives in southern Ontario with
his partner Sean and their rescue dog, Penny.

Brad Shipway lectures in the School of Education at Southern Cross

University, Australia, and has over 14 years teaching experience across the
primary, secondary, and tertiary educational sectors. Brad has a keen
interest in critical realism and the philosophy of education, supervising
postgraduate students in these areas. His current research projects revolve
around using critical realism as an underlabourer for emancipatory edu-
cational pedagogy.

Robert B. Stevenson is a Research Leader in Education for Sustainability

with the Cairns Institute at James Cook University. During an academic
career based in the USA, he served as Head/Chair of the Department of
Educational Leadership and Policy and Co-Director of the Graduate
School of Education’s Collaborative Research Network at the University
at Buffalo, New York. Prior to this, he taught high school mathematics
and then became a K-12 curriculum and professional development spe-
cialist in environmental education in Education Queensland. Bob is cur-
rently Director of the Centre for Research and Innovation in Sustainability
Education at JCU. He was lead editor of Engaging Environmental
Education: Learning, Culture and Agency (Sense, 2011) and the
 Contributors xxi

International Handbook of Research in Environmental Education (AERA/

Routledge, 2013) and is Executive Editor of the Journal of Environmental
Education (the oldest journal in the field).

Angela Turner is a Design and Technology Education Lecturer at

Southern Cross University, School of Education, Australia. She is an
Interdisciplinary teaching research scholar with a design industry back-
ground. Her specialist research area is defined through Technacy Genre
Theory (TGT), asserted to be transferrable to any research seeking to
identify, clarify and develop various forms of technological practice and
assessment strategies concerned with the choice and use of technologies.
Angela’s research methodology draws on the multifaceted synergies
between human agency, technology choice and the sustainable use of
materials as an ecological resource. Angela has collaborated with local
Aboriginal Elders on native bush food educational walking trails, and led
food education research projects with rural and remote school communi-
ties. Core to this includes cross-cultural food ontological framings on
nutritional health and food science, and Indigenous Australian food sys-
tems in relation to regional food sustainability design and development.

Brian Wattchow is a Senior Lecturer in Outdoor Education in the

School of Education at Federation University Australia. He has over
30 years of experience teaching, guiding and researching in outdoor edu-
cation. His research interests include sense of place, landscape and story-
telling. In 2010 he completed a 2500 km canoe descent of River Murray
and published his first collection of poetry titled The Song of the
Wounded River (Ginninderra Press, 2010). He co-authored A Pedagogy
of place: Outdoor education for a changing world (Monash University
Publishing, 2011) and was lead editor and author of The socio-­ecological
educator: A 21st Century renewal of sport, physical, health, environment and
outdoor education (Springer, 2014).

Hilary Whitehouse is an experienced environmental educator with a

strong commitment to researching, learning and teaching for sustainabil-
ity, science education and research education. Her current research inter-
est is in climate change education. She lives in Cairns and works at James
xxii Contributors

Cook University because she loves rainforests and reefs. Hilary is an exec-
utive editor of the Journal of Environmental Education, a member of the
international advisory board for the Australian Journal of Environmental
Education, and a life member of the Australian Association for
Environmental Education (AAEE). She has coordinated and taught
undergraduate and postgraduate subjects in science education, pedagogy,
education for sustainability and research education.

Helen Widdop Quinton is a Lecturer in Science, Sustainability, Health

and Wellbeing Education at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.
Drawing on her past work as a school teacher and environmental educa-
tion project manager, her research centres on identifying the connections
between people and planetary wellbeing; particularly people’s interac-
tions and relationships with place, space and nature. Her recent research
focuses on working with adolescents in remote villages in the Eastern
Himalayan region of India to explore the social and physical geographies
of their local places.

Judith Wilks is Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Education

at Southern Cross University and also Adjunct Associate Professor with
the Nulungu Research Institute of the University of Notre Dame
Australia. She is an experienced educator with a significant research,
teaching and community engagement track record in regional education
services delivery in both the higher education and schooling sectors.
Judith’s research interests and publications stretch across a number of
fields. These include the promotion of agency, resilience, and citizenship
skills through participatory methodologies for children and young people
in environmental education learning settings. Judith has also been an
active member of national research collaboration (Nulungu Institute)
that has sought to promote access, participation and success in higher
education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. In recent
years Judith has undertaken considerable work in the Western Kimberley
region of Western Australia focusing on strengthening the learning expe-
riences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander higher education students
living in remote locations.
 Contributors xxiii

Tracy Young is a Lecturer at Swinburne University in Melbourne,

Australia with research interests in environmental sustainability, human-­
animal studies and early childhood education. Her current research trou-
bles the connections and disjunctions of children’s relations with animals
in family homes and early childhood education within a critical posthu-
man theoretical framework. The complex relations with children, ani-
mals and environments provide spaces for ethical analysis of how animal
species are socially constructed, culturally reproduced and positioned in
early childhood education.
 List of Figures

Vignette 1 Socioecological – A fluid yet intertangled mesh 3

Fig. 1.1 The geological time spiral-A path to the past. The U.S. geo-
logical survey (https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/2008/58/) 6
Fig. 1.2 Animal exploitation as entertainment; a chimpanzee dressed
in human clothing and smoking to ‘entertain’ the young
children at a pre-school, Australia, 1970s 8
Fig. 1.3 The cane toad – an introduced species in Australia by
humans9
Vignette 2 The Anthropocene, malconsumption and the impact on the
planet; stumbling stone at the beginning of Wall Street,
New York transposed over water drenched windscreen in
carwash11
Vignette 3 Humanism, where the nonhuman is an object; Washed up
fishing catch in net and decomposed turtle on Kingscliff,
Australia16
Vignette 4 Common Worlds of nature-culture-childhood; Children
playing in tree next to a de-natured human play structure,
No adults without children, Glass sculptures made by a
human artist that resemble plants; a mother, child and tree 19

xxv
xxvi List of Figures

Vignette 5 Creative Milieux; Child in a cage in Japanese monkey park

where humans are enclosed and wild monkeys are ‘free’.
Humans use nuts to lure the monkeys in; Domestic kitten
gazes outside where he longs to be; Two metre dog sculpture
made of plants in Atlanta Botanical Gardens; Interspecies affec-
tion with a dog and a seal 22
Fig. 2.1 Daniel’s interview with a tree 33
Fig. 2.2 Kosi the pedadog exploring animal tracks with the kinder-
garten children 38
Fig. 2.3 River flowing through the Whanganui National Park, New
Zealand41
Fig. 3.1 A heuristic model for unlearning and learning dualisms 62
Fig. 3.2 A heuristic model for unlearning and learning nature/cul-
ture dualisms 63
Fig. 5.1 Opportunities for de-learning learning – the Anthropocene;
Man bites dog. What are the possibilities of mutual learn-
ing? Is it too late? Clockwise – tree of life, human-nonhu-
man mutuality; in the embrace of nature; fallen gods; tension
and revitalisation 103
Fig. 5.2 Opportunities for de-learning learning – posthumanism.
What is it to be human? What of the others? Who are the
teachers, who are the learners? Is there any learning happen-
ing? Top – queueing. Middle – power beyond human; inter-
national mango travel; human serenity; robotic dinosaurs;
here be dragons. Bottom – guarding the future? 105
Fig. 5.3 Opportunities for de-learning learning – Common Worlds;
decoupling human societies and natural environments.
Uncommon moments for common world insights.
Doorways to new learnings? Top – Patagonia as expected.
Middle – framing the coast differently; free flying – flying
free; power; resource depletion depleted. Bottom – ecohut;
the future of history past; why?; metal reeds 112
Fig. 5.4 Opportunities for de-learning learning – creative milieux:
uncommon friends. Unexpected synergies. Clockwise –
Hawai’i expected i.; Hawai’i expected ii.; bamboo forest
singing trees; uncommon danger; local totem; Kauai
rooster – global visitor; coffee art. Centre - intersecting
worlds120
 List of Figures xxvii

Fig. 8.1 View of the surrounding Himalayan Mountains above the

clouds from Ghoom High School 215
Fig. 9.1 Niha’s drawing on “International Mother Language
Day/21st February” with slogans such as “Bengali will be
our national language” in front of the Martyr’s Memorial at
the campus of the University of Dhaka 241
Fig. 9.2 Rainforest remnant growing where open pasture occurred
thirty years previously 248
Fig. 9.3 Young hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) emerging in the
rainforest remnant 249
Fig. 9.4 Advanced Hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii) growing in
the rainforest remnant 249
Fig. 9.5 An example of a young strangler fig tree growing and sur-
rounding an older strangler fig tree 251
Fig. 9.6 Bangalow palm (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana) emerg-
ing in the built environment 252
Fig. 9.7 Turkey mound built close to carport 253
Fig. 9.8 Scrub turkey raking the leaves to build his mound 253
Fig. 9.9 Male and female scrub turkey on mound 254
Fig. 9.10 A potter wasp building a nest under a roof of a home 255
Fig. 9.11 A carpet python in a box of screws 256
Fig. 9.12 An Australian ring tailed possum in a home shed 257
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Examples of dyads in socioecological discourse 59

Table 6.1 Big History thresholds. (Adapted from Big History Project,
2018, n.p.) 141
Table 6.2 Big History pedagogical intervention data collection and
analysis phases 149

xxix
 1
Touchstones for Deterritorializing
the Socioecological Learner

Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, Alexandra Lasczik,

Marianne Logan, Judith Wilks, and Angela Turner

Abstract The opening chapter of this book orients the reader through
the introduction of the concept of the socioecological learner. In so doing
the chapter clears the ground through a diffractive untangling of the

A. Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles (*) • A. Lasczik • M. Logan

School of Education, Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education
(SEAE) Research Cluster, Southern Cross University, Bilinga, QLD, Australia
e-mail: amy.cutter-mackenzie@scu.edu.au; lexi.lasczik@scu.edu.au; marianne.
logan@scu.edu.au
J. Wilks
School of Education, Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education
(SEAE) Research Cluster, Southern Cross University, Coffs Harbour, NSW,
Australia
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, WA, Australia
e-mail: judith.wilks@scu.edu.au
A. Turner
School of Education, Sustainability, Environment and the Arts in Education
(SEAE) Research Cluster, Southern Cross University,
Coffs Harbour, NSW, Australia
e-mail: angela.turner@scu.edu.au
© The Author(s) 2020 1
A. Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles et al. (eds.), Touchstones for Deterritorializing
Socioecological Learning, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12212-6_1
2 A. Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles et al.

socioecological learner drawing upon research vignettes and the touch-

stone concepts of the Anthropocene, Posthumanism and Common
Worlds as Creative Milieux (In this collection, the authors engage the
French plural of milieu: milieux, not milieus). This ‘clearing of the
ground’ is an ontological and epistemological approach of de-territorial-
izing the learner for a post-Anthropocene world. It opens up the space
for de-learning and de-imagining (‘de’ meaning ‘from’ in Spanish) the
learner as a socioecological learner.

Keywords Anthropocene • Post-Anthropocene • Posthumanism •

Common Worlds • Creative Miliex • De-learning • De-imagining •
Deterritorializing

Clearing the Socioecological Ground

Clearing the ground seems like an overtly ‘human’ endeavour, but this
clearing is in fact an unhumanising process in an attempt to generate new
ways of thinking and being as ‘a learner’. Some may describe this as a
process of re-learning, but we see it as de-learning and de-imagining (‘de’
after the Spanish word for ‘from’) what it is to be human on a planet where
humans are one of many species rather than ‘the superior dominant spe-
cies’. This book embraces a flat ontology, which rejects human privileging
and dominance over nonhuman subjects and objects. A flattened ontol-
ogy requires humans to radically and actively live carefully, thoughtfully
and ethically.
Snaza and Weaver (2015) argue that given the saturation of humanism
“it is not even remotely possible at the present moment to conceptually
or practically lay out a theory of posthumanist education or outline the
contours of a posthumanist pedagogy” (p. 3). It is for this reason that the
Editors resisted calling the book ‘The Posthumanist Learner’. By doing so
though it is important to acknowledge the complexities between the the-
ories of the socioecological and of posthumanism, indeed an enduring
tension is provoked throughout this collection, which is purposeful
and useful.
 1 Touchstones for Deterritorializing the Socioecological Learner 3

This brings us to the touchstone concepts of what it is to be a socioeco-

logical learner, for the purposes of this collection and the thoughts and
actions that stem from it. By touchstones, we mean to work the concepts
as an assaying apparatus. The notion, socioecological, in and of itself is
problematic in that some may see it as saturated, disassembled, humanist.
Yet we argue that at the centre of socioecological learning is a posthuman-
ist ethos. There is a dualism automatically established between socio and
ecological, but we believe it is crucial to dwell in these tensions and spaces
as a process of dissembling human dominance in education. As such, this
requires a deterritorializing of the socioecological, in the context of the
Anthropocene. We now turn to a de-imagining of the socioecological,
before presenting the touchstone concepts, namely the Anthropocene,
Posthumanism and Common Worlds as Creative Milieux.

Vignette 1 Socioecological – A fluid yet intertangled mesh. (Image by Authors

(Lasczik and Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles). Reproduced with permission)
4 A. Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles et al.

De-imagining the Socioecological

A socioecological framing is grounded in a post-anarchist theoretical ori-
entation (Bookchin, 1994), yet supported by an experiential learning
framework (Dewey, 1916, 1938; Merleau-Ponty, 1945). It is antidisci-
plinary whereby fields of research operate as collectives rather than as silos
(Wattchow et al., 2014). In the book The Socioecological Educator, Brown,
Jeanes and Cutter-Mackenzie (2014) identify four foundational concepts
central to a socioecological framing, namely: (i) lived experience, (ii)
place, (iii) experiential pedagogies/learnings, and (iv) agency and partici-
pation. These concepts are helpful in thinking through the complexity of
the educator or pedagogue, although problematic insofar as these con-
cepts retain an explicit focus on the human, albeit in place.
At the core, socio is thought of as ‘social, sociological or society’. Such
concepts are readily human-saturated and imbued. Socio alludes to
Latin etymologies of socius, which translate as companion, associate,
ally – all very humancentric concepts. In our conceptualisations, we are
expanding socio to embrace the nonhuman in subject and object, so
that the ‘companions’, ‘allies’ and ‘associate’ relationalities transcend
human boundaries.
Ecological is relating to or concerned with the relationship of subjects
and objects to one another. Traditional definitions of ‘ecological’ however
have tended to frame it through the connections of ‘living organisms’ and
their relationship to the ‘physical environment’. In this chapter, and
indeed in the collection, we view ecology as the entanglement of every-
thing – common and uncommon subjects and objects.
Applying such a socioecological framing is fluid rather than develop-
mental, and its components are not conceived as systems. Rather, they
are approached as interpenetrating fields of relationships which come to
shape emergent and dynamic processes of socioecological learning.
Throughout this book we use the three touchstone concepts to illustrate
the fluid and interrelational character of learning, viewed within this
socioecological framing.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER.
There is some error in Mr. Macaulay’s statement, which, as a
matter of history, may be worth correcting. So far from there having
been few aliens, except sovereign princes, admitted into the order,
the fact, save in recent times, is exactly the reverse. The order
contemplated the admission of foreigners, from the very day of its
foundation. On that day, three foreigners were admitted, none of
whom was a sovereign prince. Not one of the foreign sovereigns with
whom Edward was in alliance, nor any of the royal relatives of the
Queen, were among the original companions. The aliens, who were
not sovereign princes, were the Captal de Buch, a distinguished
Gascon nobleman, and two bannerets or knights, who with the other
original companions had served in the expeditions sent by Edward
against France.
Again, under Richard II., among the most famous alien gentlemen
created knights of the Garter, were the Gascon soldier Du Preissne;
Soldan de la Tour, Lord of much land in Xaintonge; the Dutch Count
William of Ostervant, who made a favor of accepting the honorable
badge; the Duke of Bavaria (not yet Emperor), and Albert, Duke of
Holland, who was hardly a sovereign prince, but who, nevertheless,
may be accounted as such, seeing that, in a small way indeed, more
like a baron than a monarch, he exercised some sovereign rights.
The Duke of Britanny may, with more justice, be included in the list of
sovereign dukes who were members of the order. Under Henry IV.,
neither alien noble nor foreign prince appears to have been elected,
but under his successor, fifth of the name, Eric X., King of Denmark,
and John I., King of Portugal, were created companions. They were
the first kings regnant admitted to the order. Some doubt exists as to
the date of their admission, but none as to their having been knights’
companions. Dabrichecourt is the name of a gentleman lucky
enough to have been also elected during this reign, but I do not
know if he were of foreign birth or foreign only by descent. The
number of the fraternity became complete in this reign, by the
election of the Emperor Sigismund. Under Henry V., the foreign
sovereign princes, members of the order, were unquestionably more
numerous than the mere alien gentlemen; but reckoning from the
foundation, there had been a greater number of foreign knights not
of sovereign quality than of those who were. The sovereign princes
did not seem to care so much for the honor as private gentlemen in
foreign lands. Thus the German, Sir Hartook von Clux, accepted the
honor with alacrity, but the King of Denmark allowed five years to
pass before he intimated that he cheerfully or resignedly tendered
his acceptance. At the first anniversary festival of the Order, held
under Henry VI., as many robes of the order were made for alien
knights not sovereign princes, as for gartered monarchs of foreign
birth. The foreign princes had so little appreciated the honor of
election, that when the Sovereign Duke of Burgundy was proposed,
under Henry VI., the knights would not go to election until that
potentate had declared whether he would accept the honor. His
potentiality declared very distinctly that he would not; and he is the
first sovereign prince who positively refused to become a knight of
the Garter! In the same reign Edward, King of Portugal, was elected
in the place of his father, John:—this is one of the few instances in
which the honor has passed from father to son. The Duke of
Coimbra, also elected in this reign, was of a foreign princely house,
but he was not a sovereign prince. He may reckon with the alien
knights generally. The Duke of Austria too, Albert, was elected
before he came to a kingly and to an imperial throne; and against
these princes I may place the name of Gaston de Foix, whom Henry
V. had made Earl of Longueville, as that of a simple alien knight of
good estate and knightly privileges. One or two scions of royal
houses were elected, as was Alphonso, King of Aragon. But there is
strong reason for believing that Alphonso declined the honor. There
is some uncertainty as to the period of the election of Frederick III.,
that economical Emperor of Austria, who begged to know what the
expenses would amount to, before he would “accept the order.” All
the garters not home-distributed, did not go to deck the legs of
foreign sovereign princes. Toward the close of the reign we find the
Vicomte de Chastillion elected, and also D’Almada, the Portuguese
knight of whose jolly installation at the Lion in Brentford, I have
already spoken. An Aragonese gentleman, Francis de Surienne, was
another alien knight of simply noble quality; he was elected in the
King’s bedchamber at Westminster; and the alien knights would
more than balance the foreign sovereign princes, even if we throw in
Casimir, King of Poland, who was added to the confraternity under
the royal Lancastrian.
The first foreigner whom Edward IV. raised to companionship in the
order, was not a prince, but a private gentleman named Gaillard
Duras or Durefort. The honor was conferred in acknowledgment of
services rendered to the King, in France; and the new knight was
very speedily deprived of it, for traitorously transferring his services
to the King of France. Of the foreign monarchs who are said to have
been elected companions, during this reign—namely, the Kings of
Spain and Portugal—there is much doubt whether the favor was
conferred at all. The Dukes of Ferrara and Milan were created
knights, and these may be reckoned among ducal sovereigns,
although less than kings; and let me add that, if the Kings of Spain
and Portugal were elected, the elections became void, because
these monarchs failed to send proxies to take possession of their
stalls. Young Edward V. presided at no election, and his uncle and
successor, Richard III., received no foreign prince into the order. At
the installation, however, of the short-lived son of Richard, that
sovereign created Geoffrey de Sasiola, embassador from the Queen
of Spain, a knight, by giving him three blows on the shoulders with a
sword, and by investing him with a gold collar.
Henry VII. was not liberal toward foreigners with the many garters
which fell at his disposal, after Bosworth, and during his reign. He
appears to have exchanged with Maximilian, the Garter for the
Golden Fleece, and to have conferred the same decoration on one
or two heirs to foreign thrones, who were not sovereign princes when
elected. It was not often that these princes were installed in person.
Such installation, however, did occasionally happen; and never was
one more singular in its origin and circumstances, than that of Philip,
Archduke of Austria. Philip had resolved to lay claim to the throne of
Spain by right of his wife Joan, daughter of Ferdinand of Castile and
Aragon. He was on his way to Spain, when foul winds and a
tempestuous sea drove him into Weymouth. Henry invited him to
Windsor, treated him with great hospitality, and installed him Knight
of the Garter. Philip “took the oath to observe the statutes, without
any other qualification than that he might not be obliged to attend
personally at the chapters, or to wear the collar, except at his own
pleasure. In placing the collar round his neck, and in conducting him
to his stall, Henry addressed him as ‘Mon fils,’ while Philip, in return,
called the King ‘Mon père,’ and these affectionate appellations are
repeated in the treaty of peace and unity between the two countries,
which was signed by Henry and Philip, while sitting in their
respective stalls, and to the maintenance of which they were both
then solemnly sworn. Previously to the offering, Philip wished to
stand before his stall, like the other knights, and to follow the King to
the altar, requesting to be allowed to do his duty as a knight and
brother of the order ought to do to the sovereign; but Henry declined,
and taking him by the left hand, the two Kings offered together. After
the ceremony, Philip invested Henry, Prince of Wales, with the collar
of the Golden Fleece, into which order he had, it is said, been
elected at Middleburgh in the preceding year, 1506.
Under Henry VIII. we find the first Scottish monarch who ever wore
the Garter, namely James V. He accepted the insignia “with princely
heart and will,” but, in a formal instrument, he set down the statutes
which he would swear to observe, and he rejected all others.
Francis, King of France, Charles V., Emperor of Germany, and
Ferdinand, King of Hungary, were also members of the order. But the
sovereign princes elected during this reign did not outnumber the
alien knights of less degree. When Henry was at Calais, he held a
chapter, at which Marshal Montmorency, Count de Beaumont, and
Philip de Chabot, Count de Neublanc, were elected into the order.
This occasion was the first and only time that the Kings of England
and France attended together and voted as companions in the
chapters of their respective orders. Like the other knights, Francis
nominated for election into the Garter, three earls or persons of
higher degree, three barons, and three knights-bachelors, and the
names present an interesting fact, which has not been generally
noticed. Henry was then enamored of Anne Boleyn, whom he had
recently created Marchioness of Pembroke, and who accompanied
him to Calais. With a solitary exception, the French King gave all his
suffrages for his own countrymen, and as the exception was in favor
of her brother, George, Lord Rochford, it was evidently intended as a
compliment to the future Queen of England.
It was the intention of Edward VI. to have created Lewis, Marquis of
Gonzaga, a knight of the order, but there is no evidence that he was
elected. It is difficult to ascertain the exact course of things during
this reign; for Mary, subsequently, abrogated all the changes made
by Edward, in order to adopt the statutes to the exigencies of the
reformed religion. She did even more than this; she caused the
register to be defaced, by erasing every insertion which was not in
accordance with the Romish faith. It is known, however, that Henri II.
of France was elected. His investiture took place in a bed-room of
the Louvre in Paris. He rewarded the Garter King-at-arms with a gold
chain worth two hundred pounds, and his own royal robe, ornmented
with “aglets,” and worth twenty-five pounds. Against this one
sovereign prince we have to set the person of an alien knight—the
Constable of France. The foreign royal names on the list were,
however, on the accession of Mary, three against one of foreign
knights of lower degree. That of Philip of Spain soon made the
foreign royal majority still greater; and this majority may be said to
have been further increased by the election of the sovereign Duke of
Savoy. Mary elected no foreign knight beneath the degree of
sovereign ruler—whether king or duke.
Elizabeth very closely followed the same principle. Her foreign
knights were sovereigns, or about to become so. The first was
Adolphus, Duke of Holstein, son of the King of Denmark, and heir of
Norway. The second was Charles IX. of France, and the third,
Frederick, King of Denmark; the Emperor Rudolf was, perhaps, a
fourth; and the fifth, Henri Quatre, the last king of France who wore
the Garter till the accession of Louis XVIII. As for the Spanish
widower of Mary, Sir Harris Nicholas observes, “Philip, king of Spain,
is said to have returned the Garter by the hands of the Queen’s
ambassador, Viscount Montague, who had been sent to induce him
to renew the alliance between England and Burgundy. Philip did not
conceal his regret at the change which had taken place in the
religion and policy of his country; but he displayed no sectarian
bitterness, expresses himself still desirous of opposing the designs
of the French, who sought to have Elizabeth excommunicated, and
stated that he had taken measures to prevent this in the eyes of a
son of the Church of Rome, the greatest of all calamities, from
befalling her, without her own consent. It appears, however, that
Elizabeth did not accept of Philip’s resignation of the Garter, for he
continued a companion until his decease, notwithstanding the war
between England and Spain, and the attempt to invade this country
by the Spanish Armada in 1588.”
When I say Elizabeth closely followed the example of Mary I should
add as an instance wherein she departed therefrom—the election of
Francis Duke of Montmorency, envoy from the French King. The
Queen bestowed this honor on the Duke, “in grateful
commemoration,” says Camden, “of the love which Anne, constable
of France, his father, bore unto her.” At the accession of James I.,
however, Henri IV. of France was the only foreigner, sovereign or
otherwise, who wore the order of the Garter. Those added by James
were the King of Denmark, the Prince of Orange, and the Prince
Palatine. Of the latter I have spoken in another place; I will only
notice further here, that under James, all precedence of stalls was
taken away from princes below a certain rank; that is to say, the last
knights elected, even the King’s own son, must take the last stall. It
was also then declared “that all princes, not absolute, should be
installed, henceforth, in the puisne place.”
There was one foreign knight, however, whose installation deserves
a word apart, for it was marked by unusual splendor, considering
how very small a potentate was the recipient of the honor. This was
Christian, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. On the last day of the
year 1624, James, with his own hands, placed the riband and
George round the neck of the Duke. The latter was then twenty-four
years of age. “The Duke of Brunswick,” says Chamberlain, in a letter
to Sir Dudley Carleton, January 8, 1625, “can not complain of his
entertainment, which was every way complete, very good and
gracious words from the King, with the honor of the Garter, and a
pension of two thousand pounds a year. The Prince lodged him in
his own lodgings, and at parting, gave him three thousand pounds in
gold, besides other presents.” James conferred the Garter on no less
than seven of his Scottish subjects. If these may be reckoned now,
what they were considered then, as mere foreigners, the alien
knights will again outnumber the foreign sovereign princes, wearers
of the Garter.
The first knight invested by Charles I. was an alien chevalier, of only
noble degree. This was the Duke de Chevreuse, who was Charles’s
proxy at his nuptials with Henrietta Maria, and who thus easily won
the honors of chivalry among the Companions of St. George. It
seems, however, that the honor in question was generally won by
foreigners, because of their being engaged in furthering royal
marriages. Thus, when the King’s agent in Switzerland, Mr. Fleming,
in the year 1633, suggested to the government that the Duke of
Rohan should be elected a knight of the Garter, Mr. Secretary Coke
made reply that “The proposition hath this inconvenience, that the
rites of that ancient order comport not with innovation, and no
precedent can be found of any foreign subject ever admitted into it, if
he were not employed in an inter-marriage with this crown, as the
Duke of Chevreuse lately was.” There certainly was not a word of
truth in what the Secretary Coke thus deliberately stated. Not only
had the Garter frequently been conferred on foreign subjects who
had had nothing to do as matrimonial agents between sovereign
lovers, but only twelve years after Coke thus wrote, Charles
conferred the order upon the Duke d’Espernon, who had no claim to
it founded upon such service as is noticed by the learned secretary.
At the death of Charles I. there was not, strictly speaking, a single
foreign sovereign prince belonging to the order. The three foreign
princes, Rupert, William of Orange, and the Elector Palatine, can not
justly be called so. The other foreign knights were the Dukes of
Chevreuse and Espernon.
The foreign knights of the order created by Charles II. were Prince
Edward, son of “Elizabeth of Bohemia;” Prince Maurice, his elder
brother; Henry, eldest son of the Duke de Thouas, William of
Nassau, then three years of age, and subsequently our William III.;
Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg; Gaspar, Count de Morchin;
Christian, Prince Royal of Denmark; Charles XI., King of Sweden;
George, Elector of Saxony; and Prince George of Denmark, husband
of the Princess Anne. It will be seen that those who could be strictly
called “sovereign princes,” claiming allegiance and owing none, do
not outnumber alien knights who were expected to render
obedience, and could not sovereignly exert it. Denmark and Sweden,
it may be observed, quarrelled about precedency of stalls with as
much bitterness as if they had been burghers of the “Krähwinkel” of
Kotzebue.
The short reign of James II. presents us with only one alien Knight of
the Garter, namely, Louis de Duras, created also Earl of Feversham.
“Il était le second de son nom,” says the Biographie Universelle, “qui
eut été honoré de cette decoration, remarque particulière dans la
noblesse Française.”
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.
George II. gave the Garter to that deformed Prince of Orange who
married his excitable daughter Anne. The same honor was conferred
on Prince Frederick of Hesse Cassel, who espoused George’s
amiable daughter Mary; Prince Frederick of Saxe Gotha, the Duke of
Saxe Weisenfels, the Margrave of Anspach, the fatherless son of the
Prince of Orange last named, and, worthiest of all, that Prince
Ferdinand of Brunswick who won the honor by gaining the battle of
Minden. He was invested with cap, habit, and decorations, in front of
his tent and in the face of his whole army. His gallant enemy, De
Broglie, to do honor to the new knight, proclaimed a suspension of
arms for the day, drew up his own troops where they could witness
the spectacle of courage and skill receiving their reward, and with his
principal officers dining with the Prince in the evening. “Each party,”
says Miss Banks, “returned at night to his army, in order to
recommence the hostilities they were engaged in, by order of their
respective nations, against each other, on the next rising of the sun.”
I do not know what this anecdote most proves—the cruel absurdity
of war, or the true chivalry of warriors.
The era of George III. was indeed that in which foreign princes,
sovereign and something less than that, abounded in the order. The
first who received the Garter was the brother of Queen Charlotte, the
reigning Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz. Then came the Duke of
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who married Augusta, the sister of George
III. Caroline of Brunswick was the issue of this marriage. Of the
kings, roitelets, and petty princes of Germany who were added to the
Garter, or rather, had the Garter added to them, it is not worth while
speaking; but there is an incident connected with the foreign knights
which does merit to be preserved. When Bonaparte founded the
Legion of Honor, he prevailed on the King of Prussia (willing to take
anything for his own, and reluctant to sacrifice anything for the public
good) to accept the cross of the Legion for himself, and several
others assigned to him for distribution. The king rendered himself
justly abhorred for this disgraceful act; but he found small German
princes quite as eager as he was to wear the badge of the then
enemy of Europe. A noble exception presented itself in the person of
the Duke of Brunswick, a Knight of the Garter, to whom the wretched
king sent the insignia of the French order in 1805. The duke, in a
letter to the king, refused to accept such honor, “because, in his
quality of Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, he was
prevented from receiving any badge of chivalry instituted by a person
at war with the sovereign of that order.” The Prussian king found an
easier conscience in the Prince of Hesse Cassel, who was also a
Knight of the Garter. This individual, mean and double-faced as the
king, wore the cross of the Legion of Honor with the Garter. At that
troubled period, it was exactly as if some nervous lairds, in the days
of Highland feuds, had worn, at the same time, the plaids of the
Macdonalds and Campbells, in order to save their skins and estates
by thus pretending to be members of two hostile parties.
Under the Regency of George IV., the foreign sovereign princes
were admitted into the order without any regard whatever to the
regulations by statute. Within one year, or very little more than that
period, two emperors, three kings, and an heir to a throne, who soon
after came to his inheritance, were enrolled Companions of the
order. But it was the era of victories and rejoicings, and no one
thought of objecting to a prodigality which would have astounded the
royal founder. Long after the period of victory, however, the same
liberality continued to be evinced toward foreign princes of sovereign
degree. Thus at the accession of Charles X., the England monarch
despatched the Duke of Northumberland as Embassador
Extraordinary to attend at the coronation of the French monarch, and
to invest him, subsequently, with the Order of the Garter. I remember
seeing the English procession pass from the duke’s residence in the
Rue du Bac, over the Pont Royal to the Tuileries. It puzzled the
French people extremely. It took place on Tuesday, June 7, 1825. At
noon, “four of the royal carriages,” says the Galignani of the period,
“drawn by eight horses, in which were the Baron de Lalivre and M.
de Viviers, were sent to the Hotel Galifet for the Duke of
Northumberland.” The two envoys who thus contrived to ride in four
carriages and eight horses—a more wonderful feat than was ever
accomplished by Mr. Ducrow—having reached the ducal hotel, were
received by the duke, Lord Granville, our ordinary embassador, and
Sir George Naylor, his Britannic Majesty’s Commissioners charged
to invest the King of France with the insignia of the Garter. The
procession then set out; and, as I have said, it perplexed the French
spectators extremely. They could not imagine that so much
ceremony was necessary in order to put a garter round a leg, and
hang a collar from a royal neck. Besides the four French carriages-
and-eight, there were three of the duke’s carriages drawn by six
horses; one carriage of similar state, and two others more modestly
drawn by pairs, belonging to Lord Granville. The carriage of “Garter”
himself, behind a couple of ordinary steeds; and eight other
carriages, containing the suites of the embassadors, or privileged
persons who passed for such in order to share in the spectacle,
closed the procession. The duke had a very noble gathering around
him, namely, the Hon. Algernon Percy, his secretary, the Marquis of
Caermarthen, the Earl of Hopetoun, Lords Prudhoe (the present
duke), Strathaven, Pelham, and Hervey, the Hon. Charles Percy, and
the goodhumored-looking Archdeacon Singleton. Such was the
entourage of the embassador extraordinary. The ordinary
embassador, Lord Granville, was somewhat less nobly surrounded.
He had with him the Hon. Mr. Bligh, and Messrs. Mandeville, Gore,
Abercrombie, and Jones. Sir George Naylor, in his Tabard, was
accompanied by a cloud of heralds, some of whom have since
become kings-of-arms—namely, Messrs. Woods, Young, and
Wollaston, and his secretary, Mr. Howard. More noticeable men
followed in the train. There were Earl Gower and Lord Burghersh,
the “Honorables” Mr. Townshend, Howard, and Clive, Captain Buller,
and two men more remarkable than all the rest—the two
embassadors included—namely, Sir John Malcolm and Sir Sidney
Smith. Between admiring spectators, who were profoundly amazed
at the sight of the duke in his robes, the procession arrived at the
palace, where, after a pause and a reorganizing in the Hall of
Embassadors, the party proceeded in great state into the Gallery of
Diana. Here a throne had been especially erected for the investiture,
and the show was undoubtedly most splendid. Charles X. looked in
possession of admirable health and spirits—of everything, indeed,
but bright intellect. He was magnificently surrounded. The duke wore
with his robes that famous diamond-hilted sword which had been
presented to him by George IV., and which cost, I forget how many
thousand pounds. His heron’s plume alone was said to be worth five
hundred guineas. His superb mantle of blue velvet, embroidered with
gold, was supported by his youthful nephew, George Murray (the
present Duke of Athol), dressed in a Hussar uniform, and the Hon.
James Drummond, in a Highland suit. Seven gentlemen had the
responsible mission of carrying the insignia on cushions, and Sir
George preceded them, bearing a truncheon, as “Garter Principal
King-at-arms.” The duke recited an appropriate address, giving a
concise history of the order, and congratulating himself on having
been employed on the present honorable mission. The investiture
took place with the usual ceremonies; but I remember that there was
no salute of artillery, as was enjoined in the book of instructions
drawn up by Garter. The latter official performed his office most
gracefully, and attached to the person of the King of France, that
day, pearls worth a million of francs. The royal knight made a very
pleasant speech when all was concluded, and the usual hospitality
followed the magnificent labors of an hour and a half’s continuance.
On the following evening, the Duke gave a splendid fête at his hotel,
in honor of the coronation of Charles X., and of his admission into
the Order of the Garter. The King and Queen of Wurtemburg were
present, with some fifteen hundred persons of less rank, but many of
whom were of greater importance in society. Perhaps not the least
remarkable feature of the evening was the presence together, in one
group, of the Dauphin and that Duchess of Angoulême who was
popularly known as the “orphan girl of the Temple,” with the Duchess
of Berri, the Duke of Orleans (Louis Philippe), and Talleyrand. The
last-named still wore the long bolster-cravat, of the time of the
Revolution, and looked as cunning as though he knew the destiny
that awaited the entire group, three of whom have since died in exile
—he alone breathing his last sigh, in calm tranquillity, in his own
land.
Charles X. conferred on the ducal bearer of the insignia of the Garter
a splendid gift—one of the finest and most costly vases ever
produced at the royal manufacture of Porcelain at Sèvres. The
painting on it, representing the Tribunal of Diana, is the work of M.
Leguai, and it occupied that distinguished artist full three years
before it was completed. Considering its vast dimensions, the nature
of the painting, and its having passed twice through the fire without
the slightest alteration, it is unique of its kind. This colossal vase now
stands in the centre of the ball-room in Northumberland House.
The last monarch to whom a commission has carried the insignia of
the Garter, was the Czar Nicholas. It was characteristic of the man
that, courteous as he was to the commissioners, he would not, as
was customary in such cases, dine with them. They were
entertained, however, according to his orders, by other members of
his family. It is since the reign of George III. that Mr. Macaulay’s
remark touching the fact of the Garter being rarely conferred on
aliens, except sovereign princes, may be said to be well-founded. No
alien, under princely rank, now wears the Garter. The most illustrious
of the foreign knights are the two who were last created by patent,
namely, the Emperor Louis Napoleon and the King of Sardinia. The
King of Prussia is also a knight of the order, and, as such, he is
bound by his oath never to act against the sovereign of that order;
but in our struggle with felonious Russia, the Prussian government,
affecting to be neutral, imprisons an English consul on pretence that
the latter has sought to enlist natives of Prussia into the English
service, while, on the other hand, it passes over to Russia the
material for making war, and sanctions the raising of a Russian loan
in Berlin, to be devoted, as far as possible, to the injury of England.
The King is but a poor knight!—and, by the way, that reminds me
that the once so-called poor knights of Windsor can not be more
appropriately introduced than here.
 THE POOR KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR,
AND THEIR DOINGS.

The founder of the Order of the Garter did well when he thought of
the “Milites pauperes,” and having created a fraternity for wealthy
and noble cavaliers, created one also for the same number of “poor
knights, infirm of body, indigent and decayed,” who should be
maintained for the honor of God and St. George, continually serve
God in their devotions, and have no further heavy duty, after the
days of bustle and battle, than to pray for the prosperity of all living
knights of the Garter, and for the repose of the souls of all those who
were dead. It was resolved that none but really poor knights should
belong to the fraternity, whether named, as was their privilege, by a
companion of the noble order, or by the sovereign, as came at last to
be exclusively the case. If a poor knight had the misfortune to
become the possessor of property of any sort realizing twenty
pounds per annum, he became at once disqualified for
companionship. Even in very early times, his position, with house,
board, and various aids, spiritual and bodily, was worth more than
this.
To be an alms knight, as Ashmole calls each member, implied no
degradation whatever; quite the contrary. Each poor but worthy
gentleman was placed on a level with the residentiary canons of
Windsor. Like these, they received twelvepence each, every day that
they attended service in the chapel, or abode in the College, with a
honorarium of forty shillings annually for small necessaries. Their
daily presence at chapel was compulsory, except good and lawful
reason could be shown for the contrary. The old knights were not
only required to be at service, but at high mass, the masses of the
Virgin Mary, as also at Vespers and Complins—from the beginning to
the end. They earned their twelvepence honestly, but nevertheless
the ecclesiastical corporation charged with the payment, often did
what such corporations, of course, have never tried to do since the
Reformation—namely, cheat those who ought to have been
recipients of their due. Dire were the discussions between the poor
(and pertinacious) knights, and the dean, canons, and treasurers of
the College. It required a mitred Archbishop of York and Lord
Chancellor of England to settle the dispute, and a very high opinion
does it afford us of the good practical sense of Church and Chancery
in the days of Henry VI., when we find that the eminent individual
with the double office not only came to a happy conclusion rapidly,
and ordered all arrears to be paid to the poor knights, but decreed
that the income of the treasurer should be altogether stopped, until
full satisfaction was rendered to the “milites pauper.” For the sake of
such Chancery practice one would almost consent to take the
Church with it.
But not only did the lesser officials of that Church cheat the veteran
knights of their pay, but their itching palm inflicted other wrong. It was
the fitting custom to divide the fines, levied upon absentees from
public worship, among the more habitually devout brethren.
Gradually, however, the dean and canons appropriated these
moneys to themselves, so that the less godly the knights were, the
richer were the dean and canons. Further, many dying noblemen
had bequeathed very valuable legacies to the College and poor
fraternity of veterans. These the business-like ecclesiastics had
devoted to their own entire profit; and it required stringent command
from king and bishop, in the reign of Richard II., before they would
admit the military legatees even to a share in the bequest.
Not, indeed, that the stout old veterans were always blameless.
Good living and few cares made “fast men” of some of them. There
were especially two in the reign last named, who created very
considerable scandal. These were a certain Sir Thomas Tawne and
Sir John Breton. They were married men, but the foolish old fellows
performed homage to vessels of iniquity, placed by them on the
domestic altar. In other words, they were by far too civil to a couple
of hussies with red faces and short kirtles, and that—not that such
circumstance rendered the matter worse—before the eyes of their
faithful and legitimate wives. The bishop was horror-stricken, no
doubt, and the exemplary ecclesiastics of the College were enjoined
to remonstrate, reprove, and, if amendment did not follow, to expel
the offenders.
Sir Thomas, I presume, heeded the remonstrance and submitted to
live more decorously, for nothing more is said of him. Jolly Sir John
was more difficult to deal with. He too may have dismissed Cicely
and made his peace with poor Lady Breton, but the rollicking old
knight kept the College in an uproar, nevertheless. He resumed
attendance at chapel, indeed, but he did this after a fashion of his
own. He would walk slowly in the procession of red-mantled brethren
on their way to service, so as to obstruct those who were in the rear,
or he would walk in a ridiculous manner, so as to rouse unseemly
laughter. I am afraid that old Sir John was a very sad dog, and,
however the other old gentleman may have behaved, he was really a
godless fellow. Witness the fact that, on getting into chapel, when he
retired to pray, he forthwith fell asleep, and could, or would, hardly
keep his eyes open, even at the sacrament at the altar.
After all, there was a gayer old fellow than Sir John Breton among
the poor knights. One Sir Emanuel Cloue is spoken of who appears
to have been a very Don Giovanni among the silly maids and merry
wives of Windsor. He was for ever with his eye on a petticoat and his
hand on a tankard; and what with love and spiced canary, he could
never sit still at mass, but was addicted to running about among the
congregation. It would puzzle St. George himself to tell all the
nonsense he talked on these occasions.
When we read how the bishop suggested that the King and Council
should discover a remedy to check the rollicking career of Sir
Edmund, we are at first perplexed to make out why the cure was not
assigned to the religious officials. The fact, however, is that they
were as bad as, or worse than, the knights. They too were as often
to be detected with their lips on the brim of a goblet, or on the cheek
of a damsel. There was Canon Lorying. He was addicted to hawking,
hunting, and jollification; and the threat of dismissal, without chance
of reinstalment, was had recourse to, before the canon ceased to
make breaches in decorum. The vicars were as bad as the canons.
The qualifications ascribed to them of being “inflated and wanton,”
sufficiently describe by what sins these very reverend gentlemen
were beset. They showed no reverence for the frolicsome canons,
as might have been expected; and if both parties united in exhibiting
as little veneration for the dean, the reason, doubtless, lay in the
circumstance that the dean, as the bishop remarked, was remiss,
simple, and negligent, himself. He was worse than this. He not only
allowed the documents connected with the Order to go to decay, or
be lost, but he would not pay the vicars their salaries till he was
compelled to do so by high authority. The dean, in short, was a sorry
knave; he even embezzled the fees paid when a vicar occupied a
new stall, and which were intended to be appropriated to the general
profit of the chapter, and pocketed the entire proceeds for his own
personal profit and enjoyment. The canons again made short work of
prayers and masses, devoting only an hour each day for the whole.
This arrangement may not have displeased the more devout among
the knights; and the canons defied the bishop to point out anything in
the statutes by which they were prevented from effecting this
abbreviation of their service, and earning their shilling easily. Of this
ecclesiastical irregularity the bishop, curiously enough, solicited the
state to pronounce its condemnation; and an order from King and
Council was deemed a good remedy for priests of loose thoughts
and practices. A matter of more moment was submitted to the
jurisdiction of meaner authority. Thus, when one of the vicars, John
Chichester, was “scandalized respecting the wife of Thomas Swift”
(which is a very pretty way of putting his offence), the matter was left
to the correction of the dean, who was himself censurable, if not
under censure—for remissness, negligence, stupidity, and fraud. The
dean’s frauds were carried on to that extent that a legacy of £200
made to the brotherhood of poor knights, having come to the
decanal hands, and the dean not having accounted for the same,
compulsion was put on him to render such account; and that
appears to be all the penalty he ever paid for his knavery. Where the
priests were of such kidney, we need not wonder that the knights
observed in the dirty and much-encumbered cloisters, the
licentiousness which was once common to men in the camp.
Churchmen and knights went on in their old courses, notwithstanding
the interference of inquisitors. Alterations were made in the statutes,
to meet the evil; some knights solicited incorporation among
themselves, separate from the Church authorities; but this and other
remedies were vainly applied.
In the reign of Henry VIII. the resident knights were not all military
men. Some of them were eminent persons, who, it is thought,
withdrew from the world and joined the brotherhood, out of devotion.
Thus there was Sir Robert Champlayne, who had been a right lusty
knight, indeed, and who proved himself so again, after he returned
once more to active life. Among the laymen, admitted to be poor
knights, were Hulme, formerly Clarencieux King-at-arms; Carly, the
King’s physician: Mewtes, the King’s secretary for the French
language; and Westley, who was made second baron of the
Exchequer in 1509.
The order appears to have fallen into hopeless confusion, but Henry
VIII., who performed many good acts, notwithstanding his evil deeds
and propensities, bequeathed lands, the profits whereof (£600) were
to be employed in the maintenance of “Thirteen Poor Knights.” Each
was to have a shilling a day, and their governor, three pounds, six
and eightpence, additional yearly. Houses were built for these
knights on the south side of the lower ward of the castle, where they
are still situated, at a cost of nearly £3000. A white cloth-gown and a
red cloth-mantle, appropriately decorated, were also assigned to
each knight. King James doubled the pecuniary allowance, and
made it payable in the Exchequer, quarterly.
Charles I. intended to increase the number of knights to their original
complement. He did not proceed beyond the intention. Two of his
subjects, however, themselves knights, Sir Peter La Maire and Sir
Francis Crane, left lands which supplied funds for the support of five
additional knights.
Cromwell took especial care that no knight should reside at Windsor,
who was hostile to his government; and he was as careful that no
preacher should hold forth there, who was not more friendly to the
commonwealth than to monarchy.
At this period, and for a hundred years before this, there was not a
man of real knight’s degree belonging to the order, nor has there
since been down to the present time. In 1724 the benevolent Mr.
Travers bequeathed property to be applied to the maintenance of
Seven Naval Knights. It is scarcely credible, but it is the fact, that
seventy years elapsed before our law, which then hung a poor
wretch for robbing to the amount of forty shillings, let loose the funds
to be appropriated according to the will of the testator, and under
sanction of the sovereign. What counsellors and attorneys fattened
upon the costs, meantime, it is not now of importance to inquire. In
1796, thirteen superannuated or disabled lieutenants of men-of-war,
officers of that rank being alone eligible under Mr. Travers’s will,
were duly provided for. The naval knights, all unmarried, have
residences and sixty pounds per annum each, in addition to their
half-pay. The sum of ten shillings, weekly, is deducted from the
“several allowances, to keep a constant table.”
The Military and Naval Knights—for the term “Poor” was dropped, by
order of William IV.—no longer wear the mantle, as in former times;
but costumes significant of their profession and their rank therein.
There are twenty-five of them, one less than their original number,
and they live in harmony with each other and the Church. The
ecclesiastical corporation has nothing to do with their funds, and
these unmarried naval knights do not disturb the slumbers of a single
Mr. Brook within the liberty of Windsor.
In concluding this division, let me add a word touching the
KNIGHTS OF THE BATH.
There was no more gallant cavalier in his day than Geoffrey, Earl of
Anjou. He was as meek as he was gallant. In testimony of his
humility he assumed a sprig of the broom plant (planta genista) for
his device, and thereby he gave the name of Plantagenet to the long
and illustrious line.
If his bravery raised him in the esteem of women, his softness of
spirit earned for him some ridicule. Matilda, the “imperially perverse,”
laughed outright when her sire proposed she should accept the hand
of Geoffrey of Anjou. “He is so like a girl,” said Matilda. “There is not
a more lion-hearted knight in all Christendom,” replied the king.
“There is none certainly so sheep-faced,” retorted the arrogant