Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/270

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The Judges' Collars of S S. anniversary the Battle of Agincourt was fought. A later writer concludes they sig nify nothing more than Souvenez vous de moi. This view is adopted by Mr. Foss in his " Lives of the Judges." Another theory is that the collar itself was nothing more than a chain on which were hung the pen dant decoration, and the chain with its links looking like a series of S S, it hence ac quired the name. When it came to be first worn by the Chief Judges does not appear with any certainty, but in 1649-1685 it was resumed by these learned persons, of whom it had been a dis tinguishing ornament for upwards of a cen tury. Dugdale, in his " Origines Juridiciales," says the origin of the collar is from Simplicius and Faustinas, brothers and Ro man Senators, who suffered martyrdom un der Diocletian, by having a stone with a chain tied round their necks and being thus thrown into the Tiber. Lord Campbell, in his lives of the Chief Justices, refers to the passage from Dugdale, but offers no com ment on it. If the collar were worn in honor of St. Simplicius, it was not so worn till about the year 1407, whereas the Order of the Garter goes back to 1349. One of the S S Collars was bestowed by Charles the Second on the then Lord Mayor of Dublin (1660), but this having been lost, another was presented to a subsequent Lord Mayor, in 1697. Originally these collars were gold enameled chains with cyphers having the badge of some order suspended, and the Order of the Garter consists of S S with roses enameled red within a garter

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of enameled blue. In 1360 an Order of the Collar or Necklace or Annonciada was instituted by Amadeus the Sixth of Savoy. The oldest of the S S collars worn by the Judges was that of the Chief Justice of the now abolished English Court of Com mon Pleas, it having been used by Sir E. Coke, and transmitted down to Tyndal, C. J., from whom it came to Lord Truro, and by him was left to his successors. Lord Ellenborough, in the English Court of Queen's Bench, retained his collar; and on his accession to the Chief Justiceship, Lord Tenterden purchased a new one, which, coming to Lord Denman, was by him trans ferred to the Corporation of Derby, of which county he was a native. Lord Camp bell also retained his collar, so Sir Alexan der Cockburn had to purchase a new one. The chief Barons of the late English Court of Exchequer were likewise the pur chasers of their own S S collars. In Ire land the collar is worn by the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, but the use of the collar as an ornament in this country must date back from a very early period. In an encounter with the Danes, in the 10th century, Malachi, the monarch of Ireland, defeated two of the Danish chiefs, and he took a collar of gold from the neck of one, and the sword of the other. It is to this feat that Moore alludes in the lines: — "When Malachi wore the collar of gold, Which he won from the proud invader." — Irish Law Times.