The Catholic Lawyer Volume 2 Number 2 Volume 2, April 1956, Number 2 Article 5 The SS Collar A. H. Ormerod Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/tcl Part of the Catholic Studies Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Catholic Lawyer by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Lawyers who are familiar with the SS collar as a badge of office of the Lord Chic Justice of England have wondered why it should be worn by Sir Thomas More who was once Lord Chancellor but never Chief Justice. We are indebted to A. H. Omerod, Esq., London, Eng- land for the following historical notes. THE SS COLLAR A. H. ORMEROD T HE HOLBEIN PORTRAIT of Sir Thomas More shows him wearing the collar of SS. The origin of this collar has"been a common puzzle to antiquaries, and one of the mysteries is why Sir Thomas More is wearing it. It is familiar to all lawyers in England as on state occasions it is worn over his judicial robes by the Lord Chief Justice of England. He wears it as successor of the Chief Justices of the Common Law Courts. In its present form it is a chain of gold composed of 26 knots and 27 letters of S linked together alternately. In the centre there is a Tudor rose attached on either side to a portcullis, the rose and portcullis being slightly larger than the other links. The collar which Sir Thomas More is wearing is rather different, being then in its later stage of development. The garter knots are not present, each letter being fastened by little chains or studs to its neigh- bour, and the rose, instead of being placed between the portcullises, is pendent to them. The questions which have exercised historians, and the answers to some of which will probably never be known for certain, are: (1) What was the origin of the collar? (2) What is the significance of the letter S? (3) Who was entitled to wear it? (4) Why is Sir Thomas More wearing it? Origin of the SS Collar Dugdale in his Origines Juridiciales professed himself quite ignorant on the subject of its origin. That this ornament hath been very anciently used in England especially by knights we have sufficient testimony from monuments and tombs of near 300 years old; how long before that I dare not take upon me to say, but the original occasion of them is of much greater antiquity. 1 1 DUODALE, ORIGINES JURIDICIALES 102 (3d ed. 1680). THE CATHOLIC LAWYER Actually, the date of its introduction into good love between them, as he did the 2 England can be fixed with some certainty liveries of his other uncles. as November 1389, -that is just about 300 The date of John of Gaunt's return from years before Dugdale. The evidence for this Spain is known, namely, November 1389. is to be found in the Parliament Rolls. There The above passage clearly shows that these is there recorded an altercation which took collars were collars of livery, 3 and that place between the Earl of Arundel and John of- Gaunt's brothers also bestowed Richard II during the sitting of Parliament them. It also indicates the spirit in which in 1394, and for which the Earl was re- such emblems were assumed. This is the quired to solicit the pardon of John of earliest mention of collars of livery in Gaunt in the presence of the King and England. Lords in Parliament. There has been published in the Ancient The record states -thatthe Earl of Arundel Kalendars and Inventories of the Treasury of the Exchequer,4 had said to the King in the presence of wit- an inventory made in the nesses that he had certain matters which first year of the reign of Henry IV enu- lay so near to his heart that his conscience merating the plate and jewels which had been would not permit him in any wise to con- the property of Edward III, Richard II, Queen ceal them, for the honour and profit of his Anne, the Duchess of York, the Duke Lord the King and his Kingdom, which of Gloucester and Sir John Golafre. In this matters he then showed to our said Lord inventory mention is made of collars of the livery the King, and declared in particular as fol- of the King of France; collars of the livery of lows: First, that it seemed to him that it Queen Anne; collars of the livery of Mons. of Lancaster, was contrary to the honour of our Lord and a livery (which was the King that his uncle the Duke of probably a collar) of the Duke of York. Guyenne and Lancaster often went in hand There are also mentioned the following: and arm with the King: Item, that the King was wont to wear the livery of the collar Item, VIII letters of S for a collar each of the Duke of Guyenne and Lancaster: of XV pearls. Item, that the people of the King's retinue Item, a pair of gilt silver basins, one wear the same livery. standing on a foot, with letters of S of the livery of Mons. The King replied that as for the first de Lancaster, and the cover with a article he himself had made, and makes, coronet above graven with his uncle, as he does in the absence of that letters of S around, and the arms of Mons. uncle his other uncles, to walk in his hand de Lancaster within. or arm: Item, as for the second article the This clearly shows that the collars of King said that very soon after the return 2 3 ROTULI PARLIAMENTORUM 313 (1832?). of his uncle when he came back from Spain into England he, the King, himself took 3 2 BOUVIER LAW DICTIONARY 2037 defines "liv- ery" as "The delivery of possession of lands to the collar from his uncle's neck and put those tenants who hold of the king in capite or it on his own, and said that he would wear by knight's service." and use it in token of the entire and cordial 4 Vol. III, pp. 313-358. APRIL, 1956 Reproduced, with permission, from 5 SOUTH CAROLINA LAW QUARTERLY 185 (1952) Thomas Knox Gordon Chief Justice of South Carolina 1771-1775 The above portrait, which hangs in the office of the Governor of South Carolina, State House, Columbia, South Carolina, indicates that the Chief Justices of the American Colonies wore the SS collar as an emblem of the office of Chief Justice. The SS collar was worn also by Irish Chief Justices as it is today by Lord Goddard. Possibly it has been worn elsewhere in the British Empire and Dominions. THE CATHOLIC LAWYER the house of Lancaster were collars of S plates of silver in which were engraven which were part of the livery. There is the 12 articles of the creed, together with abundant further evidence of this. For a single trefoil. The image of Saint Sim- example, a drawing still exists of a win- plicius hung at the collar and from it dow of the old Cathedral of St. Paul's seven plates representing the seven gifts of where the arms of John of Gaunt are the Holy Ghost." Dugdale adds: "And the placed within a collar of S. Records exist reason of this chain so used by such noble of the bestowal by his son, later Henry IV, persons was in regard that these two breth- of collars of livery during the lifetime of ren were martyred by tying a stone with his father. In the earliest instance, occur- a chain about their necks and casting their ring in 1391, the collar was formed on bodies into the river Tiber." seventeen letters of S. There are in York Of course, this all may Minster statues of Henry IV and Henry V be quite true. Collars of SS showing them wearing the collar. may have been worn in the early centuries of the Christian era by That the letter S was the device of the House of Lancaster may be accepted, but members of a Society of Saint Simplicius, but there is no evidence whatsoever that the significance of the letter has never been positively ascertained. There has, however, it has any connection with the English collar of SS. The first person to affirm that been no lack of theories. the SS on the English collar stood for Saint Significance of the Letter S Simplicius was Nicholas Harpsfield who The first is that letters SS were the died in 1583 and whose "Ecclesiastical initials of Sanctus Simplicius, a Roman History" was published at Douia in 1622. senator who suffered martyrdom in 287 The theory was obviously widely accepted under Diocletian. The origin of this theory as Camden says: has been attributed to Wicelius, a German Neither will I speak of the Judges' red polemical writer of the sixteenth century. roabes, and the Collar of SS. which they A passage from his Historia de Divis tam used in memory of S. Simplicius, a sanc- 6 veteris quam nevi testamenti published in tified Lawyer, and Senatour of Rome. 1557 is set out in Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales.5 It seems that Wicelius is Dugdale in turn seems to have accepted writing of the lives of Simplicius and the theory.