Knights Baronets

Knights Baronets is a modern degree of honour, and next to a baron; they have precedence before all knights, except those of the garter, bannerets and Privy-Counsellers, and the honour is hereditary in the male line. This order was first instituted in the year 1611 by King James I. they are created by patent, the proem whereof signifies, that it is for propagating a plantation in the province of Ulster in Ireland, for which purpose each of them was to mantain thirty soldiers in Ireland for three years, allowing each soldier 8d. per Diem, the whole sum of which was paid into the Exchequer upon passing the patent. They are to bear in a canton, or in an escutcheon, the arms of Ulster, viz. a field Argent, a sinister hand couped at the wrist Gules.

Definition taken from The Universal Etymological English Dictionary, edited by Nathan Bailey (1736)

Knights Bannerets * Barons