The Golden Fleece

Of all the orders of mediaeval chivalry which have survived the shock of successie revolutas on the continent of Europe since the great cataclysm of 1789, tkatoS the Golden Fleece ia perhaps the most distinguished and the most highly coveted by personages of royal birth or of illustrious patrician lineage. Students of the history of the art or science of heraldry will learn with interest and pleasure that, the Order of the Toisón d'Or of Spain having been conf erred on the Duke of York, his royal highness was on Tuesday invested, at Marlborough House, with the insignia of the order by the Prince of Wales, himself a knight of the order, acting in the name of the queen regent and on behalf of the young king of Spain. The secretar? of the Spanish erubassy, as chanceliürof the order, read tho royal commiss' ■ reating the duke a knight, and the ;y.v: st oeremony waa also attended by tho Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and the Duo d'Aumale as knights of the order, and by the Spanish embassador and the Earl of Kimberley, her majesty's secretary of state for foreign affairs. The Duke of York only received the badge of the order, in the shape of th6 figure of a sheep in embossed gold suspended from a heavy chain of gold, but at a chapter of the order or at great court functions at Madrid he would be entitled to wear the full robes, consisting of a long mantle of crimson velyet, cut in the fashion of a sacerdotal oope, richly ombroidered at the borders with emblematic devices of stars, half moons and fleeces in gold and lined with white satin, over a doublet and hose of crimson damask. Tho full robes also oomprise a "chaperon," or hood, with a long flowing streamer of black satin, but this headgear has in modern times been generally dispensed with. Originally the robes of the order, which was founded in 1439 by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, were of crimson cloth lined with white lamb's wool, and this circumstance has somewhat strengthened the theory that the golden fleece was instituted by Philip the Good in grateful recognition of the immense treasures which the Duke oí Burgundy had acquired from the wool of the flocks reared on his vast estates in Flanders. Be it as it may, the woolen costume was changed in 1473 at a chapter held at Valenciennes for the more costly materials of velvet, taffeta, damask and gold embroiderv. -