and, therefore, was only to be worn in the king’s presence, or in coming to and from the king’s hostel, except by the higher ranks; and this entirely confirms my view.  Had it been a mere personal decoration, like the collar of an order of knighthood, there would have been no reason for such prohibition; but as it conveyed the impression that the wearer was especially one of the king’s immediate military or household servants, and invested with certain power or influence on that ground, therefore its assumption away from the neighbourhood of the court was prohibited, except to individuals otherwise well known from their personal rank and station. 3dly.  When ARMIGER declares I am wrong in saying “That the collar was assumed,” I have every reason to believe I am still right.  I may admit that, if it was literally a livery, it would be worn only by those to whom the king gave it; but my present impression is, that it was termed the king’s livery, as being of the pattern which was originally distributed by the king, or by the Duke of Lancaster his father, to his immediate adherents, but which was afterwards assumed by all who were anxious to assert their loyalty, or distinguish their partizanship as true Lancastrians; so that the statute of 2 Hen.  IV. was rendered necessary to restrain its undue and extravagant assumption, for sundry good political reasons, some notion of which may be gathered by perusing the poem on the deposition of Richard II. published by the Camden Society.  And 4thly, Where ARMIGER disputes my conclusion, that the assumers were, so far as can be ascertained, those who were attached to the royal household or service, it will be perceived, by what I have already stated, that I still adhere to that conclusion.  I do not, therefore, admit that the statute of 2 Henry IV. shows me to be incorrect in any one of those four particulars.  ARMIGER next proceeds to allude to Manlius Torquatus, who won and wore the golden torc of a vanquished Gaul:  but this story only goes to prove that the collar of the Roman torquati originated in a totally different way from the Lancastrian collar of livery.  ARMIGER goes on to enumerate the several derivations of the Collar of Esses—­from the initial letter of Soverayne, from St. Simplicius, from St. Crispin and St. Crispinian, the martyrs of Soissons, from the Countess of Salisbury, from the word Souvenez, and lastly, from the office of Seneschalus, or Steward of England, held by John of Ghent,—­which is, as he says, “Mr. Nichols’s notion,” but the whole of which he stigmatises alike “as mere monkish or heraldic gossip;” and, finally, he proceeds to unfold his own recondite discovery, “viz. that it comes from the S-shaped lever upon the bit {250} of the bridle of the war steed,”—­a conjecture which will assuredly have fewer adherents than any one of its predecessors.  But now comes forth the disclosure of what school of heraldry this ARMIGER is the champion.  He is one who can tell us of “many more rights and privileges than are dreamt of in the philosophy either of the court of St. James’s or the college of St. Bennet’s Hill!” In short, he is the mouthpiece of “the Baronets’ Committee for Privileges.”  And this is the law which he lays down:—­