The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by King George I on 18 May 1725. Recipients of the Order are usually senior military officers or senior civil servants, and the monarch bestows it on the advice of His Majesty's Government. The name derives from an elaborate medieval ceremony for preparing a candidate to receive his knighthood, of which ritual bathing (as a symbol of purification) was an element. While not all knights went through such an elaborate ceremony, knights so created were known as "knights of the Bath".
George I constituted the Knights of the Bath as a regular military order. He did not revive the order, which did not previously exist, in the sense of a body of knights governed by a set of statutes and whose numbers were replenished when vacancies occurred.
The Order consists of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom (currently King Charles III), the Great Master (currently William, Prince of Wales), and three Classes of members:
Knight Grand Cross (GCB) or Dame Grand Cross (GCB);
Knight Commander (KCB) or Dame Commander (DCB); and
Members belong to either the Civil Division or the Military Division. Knight Companion (KB), the order's only class prior to 1815, is no longer an option. Commonwealth citizens who are not subjects of the British monarch and foreign nationals may be made honorary members.
Appointments are announced in The Gazette.
The Order of the Bath is the fourth most senior of the British orders of chivalry, after the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Thistle, and the (dormant) Order of St Patrick.
In the Middle Ages, a knighthood was often conferred with elaborate ceremonies. These usually involved the knight-to-be taking a bath (possibly symbolic of spiritual purification), during which he was instructed in the duties of knighthood by more senior knights. He was then put to bed to dry. Clothed in a special robe, he was led with music to the chapel where he spent the night in a vigil. At dawn, he made confession and attended Mass, then retired to his bed to sleep until it was fully daylight. He was then brought before the King, who after instructing two senior knights to buckle the spurs to the knight-elect's heels, fastened a belt around his waist, then struck him on the neck (with either a hand or a sword), thus making him a knight. It was this accolade which was the essential act in creating a knight, and a simpler ceremony developed, conferring knighthood merely by striking or touching the knight-to-be on the shoulder with a sword, or 'dubbing' him, as is still done today. In the early medieval period, the difference seems to have been that the full ceremonies were used for men from more prominent families.
From the coronation of Henry IV in 1399, the full ceremonies were restricted to major royal occasions, such as coronations, investitures of the Prince of Wales or royal dukes, and royal weddings, and the knights so created became known as Knights of the Bath. Knights Bachelor continued to be created with the simpler form of ceremony. The last occasion on which Knights of the Bath were created was the coronation of Charles II in 1661.
From at least 1625, and possibly from the reign of James I, Knights of the Bath were using the motto Tria juncta in uno (Latin for 'Three joined in one'), and wearing as a badge three crowns within a plain gold oval. These were both subsequently adopted by the Order of the Bath; a similar design of badge is still worn by members of the Civil Division. Their symbolism however is not entirely clear. The 'three joined in one' may be a reference to the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and either France or Ireland, which were held (or claimed in the case of France) by English and, later, British monarchs. This would correspond to the three crowns in the badge. Another explanation of the motto is that it refers to the Holy Trinity. Nicolas quotes a source (although he is sceptical of it) who claims that prior to James I the motto was Tria numina juncta in uno (three powers/gods joined in one), but from the reign of James I, the word numina was dropped, and the motto understood to mean Tria [regna] juncta in uno (three kingdoms joined in one).
The prime mover in the establishment of the Order of the Bath was John Anstis, Garter King of Arms, England's highest heraldic officer. Robert Walpole, the de facto head of His Majesty's government, was also eager to have the Order created to reduce the Duke of Montagu's financial claims on the government for a failed attempt at colonial expansion. Thus, allowing Montagu to become the Order's first Great Master, would encourage him to lay aside, or at least modify, his immense financial claim on the government. Sir Anthony Wagner, a more recent holder of the office of Garter King of Arms (1961–1978), wrote of Anstis's motivations:
It was Martin Leake's opinion that the trouble and opposition Anstis met with in establishing himself as Garter [King of Arms] so embittered him against the heralds that when at last in 1718 he succeeded, he made it his prime object to aggrandise himself and his office at their expense. It is clear at least that he set out to make himself indispensable to the Earl Marshal, which was not hard, their political principles being congruous and their friendship already established, but also to Sir Robert Walpole and the Whig ministry, which can by no means have been easy, considering his known attachment to the Pretender and the circumstances under which he came into office. ... The main object of Anstis's next move, the revival or institution of the Order of the Bath was probably that which it in fact secured, of ingratiating him with the all-powerful Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole.
The use of honours in the early eighteenth century differed considerably from the modern honours system, in which hundreds, if not thousands, of people each year receive honours on the basis of deserving accomplishments. The only honours available at that time were hereditary (not life) peerages and baronetcies, knighthoods, and the Order of the Garter (or the Order of the Thistle for Scots), none of which were bestowed in large numbers (the Garter and the Thistle are limited to twenty-four and sixteen living members respectively). The political environment was also significantly different from today:
The Sovereign still exercised a power to be reckoned with in the eighteenth century. The Court remained the centre of the political world. The King was limited in that he had to choose Ministers who could command a majority in Parliament, but the choice remained his. The leader of an administration still had to command the King's personal confidence and approval. A strong following in Parliament depended on being able to supply places, pensions, and other marks of Royal favour to the government's supporters.
The attraction of the new Order for Walpole was that it would provide a source of such favours to strengthen his political position. He made sure that most of the 36 new honorees were peers and MPs who would provide him with useful connections. Crucially, roughly half of the founder-knights were descendants of 17th century knights of the bath. George I having agreed to Walpole's proposal, Anstis was commissioned to draft statutes for the Order of the Bath. Early proposals for admit any man were dropped and Anstis included the traditional definition of a gentlemen for non-noble knights was included in the statutes, proof of ‘noble ancestry’ by which was meant armigerous birth of at least three generations on both paternal and maternal sides. As noted above, he adopted the motto and badge used by the Knights of the Bath, as well as the colour of the riband and mantle, and the ceremony for creating a knight. The rest of the statutes were mostly based on those of the Order of the Garter, of which he was an officer (as Garter King of Arms). The Order was founded by letters patent under the Great Seal dated 18 May 1725 (1725-05-18), and the statutes issued the following week.