Maintaining the rank of Honour and Devotion in the third class of the SMOM

As long as the class of Grace and Devotion is maintained as the secondary nobiliary qualification, there is no good argument to be made for diminishing the requirements for Honour and Devotion. Indeed, there is a strong case to be made for maintaining a strict standard in conformity with the history and traditions of each national nobility. There is an argument to be made for taking greater account of regional differences in those modern states which have been formed through the amalgamation of regions with widely different nobiliary systems. If those families which have traditionally provided candidates for Honour and Devotion are to continue to be recruited then the historic standards need to be maintained and compromises avoided which may be perceived as diminishing those standards. It is important to continue to provide strong incentives to members of those families which historically supported the Order to continue to do so; without such incentives it is unlikely that the decline in the number of professed knights drawn from Honour and Devotion will be reversed.