The brave new Knights of the Round Table—Sir Ringo Starr, Sir Rod Stewart, Sir Richard Branson, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Mick Jagger, and even the appallingly prolific sexual abuser, Sir Jimmy Savile, now deceased.

“Blessed are the pure in heart,” declares the slogan at the top of  the gorgeous stained glass Sir Galahad Window at St. Mary and St. George Anglican Church in Alberta, Canada. The myth surrounding King Arthur’s knights was about behaving with honor and fighting for good over evil. The code of chivalry for knights that developed in medieval times emphasized horsemanship, bravery in battle, service to God and one’s country, being faithful, honest and generous, and protecting the weak against injustice from the strong.

Nowadays, being faithful is not a requirement for those awarded British knighthoods. Rather than protecting ladies’ virtues, many modern knights do exactly the opposite. At least these adulterers’ wives get the title of “Lady” in exchange for putting up with all that philandering.

RIngo Star, who just got his knighthood this year at the age of 77, was repeatedly unfaithful to his first wife, Maureen Cox, and battled alcoholism and substance abuse. Nevertheless he seems to have settled gracefully into old age and his past philandering has been pretty tame compared to that of Rod Stewart. Sir Rod, knighted in 2016, has built a reputation, not only for his music, but also for infidelity and the sheer quantity of babes he has bonked. In Wikipedia, rather than just getting a couple of sentences about his relationships, Stewart has earned a table to list some of his best-known liaisons. He has had eight children by five different mothers. Rod Stewart’s first child, Sarah Streeter, is eight years older than model Penny Lancaster, the woman he married in 2007. Celebs do love those models. Penny is Stewart’s third wife and 26 years his junior. This babe is now Lady Stewart. Will she be able to keep that title if Stewart, true to his previous behavior, trades her in for a younger model—or maybe an actress?

However, what might save Lady Stewart from Rod Stewart’s chopping block and keep him happy is that she does not seem to be a fan of modern feminist values. As Emily Hewett of the MailOnline reported on 28 September 2015, Penny Stewart has declared that if a man puts on an apron and helps out in the kitchen, it could damage the poor chap’s masculinity. She reckons that most men are needy. Despite also having to minister to the couple’s two children—although presumably she has a team of paid help to assist—Lady Stewart knows on which side her bread is buttered. She insists that the key to a successful marriage with the aging rock star is to ensure she makes a conscious effort to dedicate time to him. As well as being a sex goddess to 71-year-old Sir Rod (who most likely needs those little blue pills to become rod-like), Lady Stewart also needs to do a good job of mothering the old codger.

Clearly infidelity doesn’t matter to be a candidate for a modern knighthood, but being honest doesn’t seem to be a requirement either. Celebrity billionaire businessman and adventurer Richard Branson was awarded one in 2000, despite a conviction for tax fraud in 1971. Since 1973 he has held his business empire in an increasingly complicated series of offshore trusts and companies, out of reach to Her Majesty’s Revenue Service. Branson has spent his life trying to avoid paying taxes and has been very successful at doing so, according to a report by Tom Brower in the Daily Mail on October 13, 2013. That year Branson minimized his taxes even further by giving up his British citizenship to become a tax exile, transferring ownership of his palatial residence in Oxfordshire, England to his children. Despite no longer being a Brit, he’s still Sir Richard (notable non-Brits can be awarded an honorary knighthood, but are not allowed to use the title “Sir”).

The knighthood all these celebrities received was a KBE—Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire, the highest of a series of Orders of the British Empire awards (see the 2015 BBC Online article “Guide to the Honours”). The lowest of these is Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), followed by Officer (OBE), then Commander (CBE) and finally the KBE. These honors were created by King George V during World War I to reward services to the war effort by civilians at home and military personnel in support positions. This was a time when Britain really did have an empire over which to preside.

Sadly, to date none of the Monty Python team has made the cut for knighthood—obviously no sense of humor goes into the selection process. At least Michael Palin was given the lower-ranking award of CBE in 2000 for services to television drama and travel. John Cleese turned down the same honor in 1996. The King of Silly Walks declared that it was “silly.” He then refused a life peerage in 1999, denying the world Baron Fawlty.

Nowadays, actors playing heroes on the silver screen will have far greater chances of snagging a knighthood than people who have actually carried out acts of heroism. Being given the role of James Bond, a character renowned for putting his life in danger for the good of Britain and the civilized world, ups your odds considerably—just look at Sir Roger Moore and Sir Sean Connery. Will Daniel Craig be next?

Yet pitifully few of the Battle of Britain fighter pilots who saved Britain from invasion by the Nazis in World War II were given knighthoods. In Hurricane: The Last Witness (André Deutsch, 2015), author Brian Milton writes, “The young men who mounted their modern steeds in the summer of 1940—Hurricanes and Spitfires—to fight skillfully as ‘The Few’ in the Battle of Britain, exactly fit the description of young men who actually earned their knighthoods by sacrifice and courage. Their ‘sword, lance and bow’ were Browning .303 machine guns.” Milton believes that every surviving pilot of the Battle of Britain should be knighted.  He himself is an unsung hero who has put his life on the line in several adventures, including having been the first person to circumnavigate the world in an open-cockpit ultralight aircraft.

One of the best-known Battle of Britain fighter pilots is Douglas Bader, a controversial figure who was taken on by the Royal Air Force despite having lost both his legs in a flying accident. However, Bader’s recognition in the Queen’s Honours List came only after his life story was made into a film, Reach for the Sky, in 1956. That year he was awarded a CBE. Ironically, Kenneth More, the actor who played Bader in the film, was also given a CBE in 1970. Bader had to wait till 1976 to get his award upgraded to a knighthood, but by then he was a legend.

I accept that many of current knights of the entertainment world are indeed extremely talented. As an avowed Trekkie, I loved Sir Patrick Stewart’s portrayal of Captain Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Next Generation. He is a wonderful actor whose Shakespearean training shows through in every part he plays. Most of the knighted celebs have made bucket loads of money, and some have even decided to place a few million here and there into charitable causes. If the celeb hasn’t gone off to live overseas, the British Government may also be earning a decent amount of tax revenue from his or her efforts. But does all this merit the Queen slapping a sword on the celeb’s shoulder? Today’s criteria rarely measure up to the legacy of British heroism that in past centuries would have been necessary to earn a knighthood.