HISTORY OF THE UNION JACK AND FLAGS OF THE EMPIRE

Their Origin, Proportions and Meanings as tracing the Constitutional Development of the British Realm, and with References to other National Ensigns

BY BARLOW CUMBERLAND, M.A.

Past President of the National Club, and of the Sons of England, Toronto; President of the Ontario Historical Society, Canada

With Illustrations and Nine Coloured Plates

THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND EXTENDED, WITH INDEX

TORONTO WILLIAM BRIGGS Booksellers' Row, Richmond Street West 1909 Copyright, Canada, 1909, by BARLOW CUMBERLAND.

TO THE FLAG ITSELF THIS STORY OF THE

Union Jack

IS DEDICATED WITH MUCH RESPECT BY ONE OF ITS SONS.

PLATE I.

[PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.]

This history of the Union Jack grew out of a paper principally intended to inform my boys of how the Union Jack of our Empire grew into its present form, and how the colours and groupings of its parts are connected with our government and history, so that through this knowledge the flag itself might speak to them in a way it had not done before.

A search for further information, extended over many varied fields, gathered together facts that had previously been separated, and grouped them into consecutive order; thus the story grew, and having developed into a lecture, was afterwards, at the suggestion of others, launched upon its public way.

The chapters on the history of the Jacks in the Thirteen American Colonies and in the United States are also new ground and may be of novel interest to not a few. The added information on the proper proportions of our Union Jack, and the directions and reasons for the proper making of its parts, may serve to correct some of the unhappy errors which now exist and may interest all in the observation and study of flags.

An Index has been added, and a record of the "Diamond Anthem" is also appended.

I would acknowledge the criticisms and kindly assistance of many, particularly of Mr. James Bain, Public Librarian of Toronto, who opened out to me the valuable collection in his library; of Mr. J. G. Colmer, C.M.G., Secretary to the Canadian High Commissioner, London, who assisted in obtaining material in England; and of Mr. W. Laird Clowes, Sir James Le Moine, Sir J. G. Bourinot and Dr. J. G. Hodgins, Historiographer of Ontario, who have made many valuable and effective suggestions.

Barlow Cumberland.

Toronto, October 1, 1900.

[PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.]

The celebration of EMPIRE DAY and of other National and Historic Anniversaries, accompanied by appropriate addresses, has greatly developed at home and abroad. The instructing value of Flags as the visible evidences of the progressive periods of National history, and the concentration of patriotic remembrance, having become more appreciated, have led, no doubt, to the request for a re-issue of this book, which had been for some time out of print.

For such purposes, and as an assistance to Readers and Teachers, the material has been practically recast and new matter incorporated, so that with the collations in the Index the phases of the various portions of the Flags, both of the British and other nationalities, may be more conveniently traced and connected.

Much additional information, particularly in the designing and creation of the Flags, has been sought out and, with additional illustrations, recorded with a view that the intentions expressed in their forms may be more clearly evidenced, their meanings realized, and their connection with Constitutional movements developed.

The suggestions and assistance of many correspondents, to this end, has been much availed of and is thankfully acknowledged.

During the interval since the last issue the Liberties and Methods of the British Constitution have still further expanded. Additional Daughter-Parliaments in the Dominions over-seas have been empowered, and their Union Flags created. To these, as also added information on other Ensigns, is due the addition to the Title.

The references in stating the progress of our National Flag are, of necessity, much condensed, but the writer trusts that with the instructing aid and narrations of its exponents, the information here put together may be found of help in causing the study of Flags, and the stories which they voice, to be of increasing interest, and their Union Jack and Ensigns more intimately known to our youth as the living emblems of our British History and Union.

Port Hope, September, 1909.

[CONTENTS.]

[LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.]

[COLOURED PLATES.]

St. George.

[THE UNION JACK.]

"It's only a small bit of bunting, It's only an old coloured rag, Yet thousands have died for its honour And shed their best blood for the flag.

"It's charged with the cross of St. Andrew, Which, of old, Scotland's heroes has led; It carries the cross of St. Patrick, For which Ireland's bravest have bled.

"Joined with these is our old English ensign, St. George's red cross on white field, Round which, from King Richard to Wolseley, Britons conquer or die, but ne'er yield.

"It flutters triumphant o'er ocean, As free as the winds and the waves; And bondsmen from shackles unloosened 'Neath its shadows no longer are slaves.

"It floats over Cypress and Malta, O'er Canada, the Indies, Hong Kong; And Britons, where'er their flag's flying, Claim the rights which to Britons belong.

"We hoist it to show our devotion To our Queen, to our country, and laws; It's the outward and visible emblem Of advancement and Liberty's cause.

"You may say it's an old bit of bunting, You may call it an old coloured rag; But Freedom has made it majestic, And time has ennobled the flag."

—"St. George."

[NOTES ON FLAGS.]

NAMES OF PARTS.

Particular names are given to the several parts of a flag.

The part next the flagstaff, or width, Is called the "hoist."

The outer part, or length, is termed the "fly," and also the "field."

These parts are further divided into "quarters," or "cantons": two "next the staff," two "in the fly."

These descriptive terms should be noted, as they will be in constant use in the pages which follow.

USAGE.

A flag at half-mast is a sign of mourning.

A flag reversed is a signal of distress.

The lowering of a flag is a signal of surrender.

The raising of the victors' flag in its place is a signal of capture.

The nationality of a country is shown by its flag.

The nationality of a vessel is made known by the flag she flies at the stern.

To hoist the flag of one nation under that of another nation, on the same flag-staff, is to show it disrespect.

[History of the Union Jack]
And Flags of the Empire.

[CHAPTER I.]

EMBLEMS AND FLAGS.

There is an instinct in the human race which delights in the flying of flags—a sentiment which appears to be inborn, causing men to become enthusiastic about a significant emblem raised in the air, whether as the insignia of descent, or as a symbol of race, or of nationality; something which, being held aloft before the sight of other men, declares, at a glance, the side to which the bearer belongs, and serves as a rallying point for those who think with him.

The child chortles at a piece of riband waved before him; a boy marches with head erect and martial stride as bearer of the banner at the head of his mimic battalion; the man, at duty's call, rallies to his national standard, and leaving home and all, stakes his life for it in his country's cause; and when the battle of life is closing and steps are homeward bound, the gray-beard, lifting his heart-filled eyes, blesses the day that brings him back within sight of his native flag.

At all ages and in all times has it been the same. The deeper we go into the records of the past the more evidence do we find that man, however varied his race or primitive his condition, however cultured his surroundings or rude his methods, has universally displayed this innate characteristic instinct of delighting and glorifying in some personal or national emblem.

To search for and discover the emblems which they bore thus discloses to us the eras of a people's history, and, therefore, it is that the study of a nation's flag is something more than a mere passing interest, and becomes one of real educational value, meriting our closest investigation, for the study of Flags is really the tracing of History by sight.

In ancient Africa, explorations among the sculptured antiquities on the Nile have brought to light a series of national and religious emblem-standards, which had meaning and use among the Egyptians long before history had a written record. The fans and hieroglyphic standards of the Pharaohs are the index to their dynasties.

The Israelites, at the time of the Exodus, had their distinctive emblems, and in the Book of Numbers (ch. ii. 2), it is related how Moses directed that in their journeyings, "Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father's house."

So it came that to every Jewish child, in all the subsequent centuries, the emblem on the standard of his tribe recalled the history and the trials of his ancestors and fortified his faith in the God of their Deliverance.

From the lost cities of Nineveh have been unearthed the ensign of the great Assyrian race, the "Twin Bull" (1), sign of their imperial might, and the records of their warriors are thus identified.

1. Assyrian Emblems.

In Europe in later times there were few parts of the continent which did not become acquainted with the metal ensigns of the great Roman Empire. The formidable Legions of their armies, issuing from the centre of the realm, carried the Imperial Eagle at their head, and setting it in triumph over many a subjugated state, established its supremacy among the peoples as a sign of the all-conquering power of their mighty Empire. To this eagle of the Roman legions may be traced back the crop of eagle emblems (2), which are borne by so many of the nationalities of Europe at the present day. The golden eagle of the French battalions, the black eagle of Prussia, the white eagle of Poland, and the double-headed eagles of Austria and Russia, whose two heads typify claim to sovereignty over both the ancient Eastern and Western sections of the Roman Empire, are all descendants from the Imperial Eagle of ancient Rome.

2. Eagle Emblems.

As these nationalities of modern Europe have successively arisen and developed into their separate existence, the emblem of their ancient subjugation has been raised by them as the emblem of their power, just as the Cross, which was once the emblem of the degradation and death of the Christ, has been accepted as the signal and glory of the nations which have come under the Christian sway.

As on the Eastern, so also on the Western hemisphere. On all continents the rainbow in the heavens is a perpetual memorial of the covenant made between God and man—the sign that behind the wonders of nature dwells the still more wonderful First Cause and Author of them all. The Peruvians, far back in the centuries of existence on the continent of South America, had preserved a tradition of a great event which, although it had taken place on another hemisphere, yet had been, by some means, transmitted to theirs, and, tracing from it the story of their national origin, they carried this emblem as sign of the lineage which they claimed as being, as they called themselves, "The Children of the Skies." Thus it was that under the standard of a "Rainbow" the armies of the Incas of Peru valiantly resisted the invasions of Pizzaro when, in the sixteenth century, the South American Continent came under the domination of Spain.

3. Tortoise Totem.

National emblems were borne farther north on the Northern continent by another nation, even yet more ancient than the Peruvians. Embedded in the ruins of buried cities of the Aztecs, in Mexico, are found the memorials of a constructive and artistic people, whose emblem of the "Eagle with outstretched wings," repeated with patriotic iteration in the stone carvings of their buildings, has thus come down to us the mute declarant of their national aspirations. The nation itself as a power has long since passed away, but the outlines of their emblem still preserve the ideals of the vanished race.

A living instance of much interest also evidences the adherence to national emblems among the earlier inhabitants of North America. Long before the invading Europeans first landed on the shores of the North Atlantic coasts, the nomad Red Indian, as he travelled from place to place through the fastnesses of the forests, along the shores of the great lakes, over the plains of vast central prairies, or amid the mountains that crown the Pacific slope, everywhere attested the story of his descent by the "Totem" of his family. This sign of the Tortoise (3), the Wolf (4), the Bear, or the Fish, painted or embroidered on his trappings or carved upon his weapons, was displayed as evidence of his origin, and whether he came as a friend or advanced as a foe, its presence nerved him to maintain the reputation of his family and the honour of his tribe.

4. Wolf Totem.

To-day the Red Man slowly yields to the ever-advancing march of the dominant and civilizing white; his means of sustenance by the chase, or of livelihood by his skill as a trapper, have been destroyed. The Indian tribes are, under the Indian treaties, required to remain within large blocks of territory called "Reserves," so that now in his poverty he is maintained upon these "reservations" solely by the dole of the peoples by whom his native country has been absorbed; yet, though so changed in their circumstances, his descendants still cling with resolute fortitude and pathetic eagerness to these ancient insignia of their native worth. These rudely-formed emblems, in outline and shape mainly taken from the animals and birds of the plain and forest, are the memorials in his decadence of the long past days when his forefathers were the undisputed monarchs of all the wilds and possessors of its widest domains. They are the Indian patents of nobility, and thus are clung to with all the pride of ancient race.

This Instinct in man to attach a national meaning to some vital emblem, and to display it as evidence of his patriotic fervour, is thus found to be all-pervading. The accuracy of its form may not be exact—it may, indeed, be well-nigh indistinguishable in its outlines—but whenever it be raised aloft, the halo of patriotic meaning, with which memory has illumined it, is answered by the flutterings of the bearer's heart; self is lost in inspiring recollection; clanship, absorbing the individual, enfolds him as one of a mighty whole, and the race-blood that is deep within him springs quick into action, obedient to the stirring call.

The fervour of this manifestation was eloquently expressed by Lord Dufferin in narrating some incidents which had occurred during one of his official tours through Canada, when Governor-General of the country, the greatest daughter-nation among the children of the Union Jack:

"Wherever I have gone, in crowded cities, in the remote hamlets, the affection of the people for their Sovereign has been blazoned forth against the summer sky by every device which art could fashion or ingenuity invent. Even in the wilds and deserts of the land, the most secluded and untutored settler would hoist some cloth or rag above his shanty, and startle the solitude of the forest with a shot from his rusty firelock and a lusty cheer from himself and his children in glad allegiance to his country's Queen. Even the Indian in his forest and on his reserve would marshal forth his picturesque symbols of fidelity in grateful recognition of a Government that never broke a treaty or falsified its plighted word to the Red Man, or failed to evince for the ancient children of the soil a wise and conscientious solicitude."[1]

Of all emblems, a Flag is the one which is universally accepted among men as the incarnation of their intensest sentiment, and when uplifted above them, concentrates in itself the annals of a nation and all the traditions of an empire.

A country's flag becomes, therefore, of additional value to its people in proportion as its symbolism is better understood and its story is more fully known. Its combinations should be studied, its story unfolded—for in itself a flag is nothing, but in its meaning it is everything.

"What is a riband worth? Its glory is priceless!"[2]

So long, then, as pride of race and nation exists among men, so long will a waving flag command all that is strongest within them, and stir their national instincts to their utmost heights.

[CHAPTER II.]

THE ORIGINS OF NATIONAL FLAGS.

With such natural emotions stirring within the breasts of its people, one can appreciate the fervid interest taken by each nation in its own national flag, and understand how it comes that the associations which cluster about its folds are so ardently treasured up.

Flags would at first sight appear to be but gaudy things, displaying contrasts of colour or variations of shape or design, according to the mood or the fancy of some enterprising flagmaker. This, no doubt, is the case with many signalling or mercantile flags. On the other hand, there is, in not a few of the flags known as "national flags," some particular combination of form or of colourings which, if they were but known, indicates the reason for their origin, or which marks some historic memory. There has been, perhaps, some notable occasion on which they were first displayed, or they may have been formed by the joining together of separate designs united at some eventful epoch, to signalize a victorious cause, or to perpetuate the memory of a great event. These great stories of the past are thus brought to mind and told anew by the coloured folds each time they are spread open by the breeze; for of most national flags it can be said, as was said by an American orator[3] of his own, "It is a piece of bunting lifted in the air, but it speaks sublimity, and every part has a voice." It is to see these colours and hear these voices in the British national flags that is our present undertaking.

Before tracing the history of our British Union Jack, some instances may be briefly mentioned in which associations connected with the history of some other nations are displayed in the designs of their national flags.

The colours of the German national banner are black, white and red (Pl. [II.], fig. 1). Since 1870, when, at the conclusion of the French war, the united German Empire was formed, this has been the general Standard for all the states and principalities that were then brought into imperial union; although each of these lesser states continues to have, in addition, its own particular flag. This banner of United Germany introduced once more the old German colours, which had been displayed from 1184 until the time when, in 1806, the empire was broken up by Napoleon I. Tradition is extant that these colours had their origin as a national emblem at the time of the crowning of Frederic I. (Barbarossa) in 1152, as ruler of the countries which are now largely included in Germany. On this occasion the pathway to the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle was laid with a carpeting of black, gold and red, and the story goes that after the ceremony this carpet was cut by the people into strips which they then displayed as flags. Thus by the repetition of these historic colours in their ensign the present union of the German Empire is connected with the early history of more than seven centuries before.

PLATE II.

The national ensign of United Italy (Pl. [II.] , fig. 2) is a flag having three parallel vertical stripes, green, white and red, the green being next the flagstaff. Upon the central white stripe there is shown a red shield, having upon it a white cross. This national flag was adopted in 1870, after the Italian peoples had risen against their separate rulers, and the previously separated principalities and kingdoms had, under the leadership of Garibaldi, been consolidated into one united kingdom under Victor Emmanuel, the then reigning king of Sardinia. The red shield here displayed on the centre of the Italian flag designates the arms of the House of Savoy, to which the Royal House of Sardinia belonged, and which had been gained by the following ancient and honourable event:

The island of Rhodes, an Italian colony in the Eastern Mediterranean, had, in 1311, been in deadly peril from the attacks of the Turks. In their extremity the then Duke of Savoy came to the aid of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John, who were defending the island, and with his help they were able to make a successful resistance. In record and acknowledgment of this great service the Knights of St. John granted to the House of Savoy the privilege of wearing upon their royal arms the white cross on a red shield, which was the badge of their order of St. John.

So it happened when, nearly six centuries afterwards, the Sardinians again came to the aid of their southern brethren, and the King of Sardinia was crowned as ruler over the new united Italian kingdom, the old emblem won in defence of ancient liberties was further perpetuated on the banner of the new kingdom of liberated and united Italy.

The colours of the Greek flag preserve the memory of a dynasty. In 1828, the Greeks, after rising in successful rebellion, had freed their land from Mohammedan domination and the power of the Sultan of Turkey. The several States formed themselves into one united kingdom, and seeking a king from among the royal houses of Europe, obtained, in 1832, Otho I., a scion of the ruling house of Bavaria. The dynasty at that time set upon the throne of Greece has since been changed, the Bavarian having parted company with the kingdom in 1861. The throne was then offered to Prince Alfred of England, but declined by him. The present king, chosen in 1863, after the withdrawal of his predecessor, is a member of the Royal House of Denmark; yet, notwithstanding this change in the reigning family, the white Greek Cross upon a light blue ground in the upper quarter, and the four alternate stripes of white on a light blue ground in the field, which form the national flag of Greece (Pl. [II.] , fig. 3), still preserve the blue and white colours of Bavaria, from whence the Greeks had obtained their first king.

The Tri-colour as displayed by the present Republic in France (Pl. [II.] II., fig. 6) has been credited with widely differing explanations of its origin, as its plain colours of blue, white and red admit of many different interpretations.

One story of its origin is, that its colours represent those of the three flags which had been carried in succession in the early centuries of the nation. The early kings of France carried the plain blue banner of St. Martin. To this succeeded, in A.D. 1124, the flaming red flag, or Oriflamme, of St. Denis, to be afterwards superseded, in the fifteenth century, by the white "Cornette Blanche," the personal banner of the heroic Joan of Arc.

It was under this royal white flag (Pl. [II.], fig. 5), bearing upon it the lilies of ancient France, that Cartier, in 1534, had sailed up the St. Lawrence, and Champlain, in 1608, had founded Quebec. Under this flag Canada was colonized; to it belonged the glories of the Jesuit Fathers and Dollard; with it La Salle and Marquette explored the far West, planting three fleur-de-lis as the sign of their discoveries. Under it Frontenac, Montcalm and Levis[4] achieved their renown, and all the annals of early Canada are contained under its régime until, in 1759, after the assault by Wolfe, it was exchanged, at the cession of Quebec, for the British Union Flag.

The tri-colour of Republican France was never carried by the forefathers of the French Canadians of the Province of Quebec, nor has it any connection with the French history of Canada. In fact, it did not make its appearance as an emblem until the time of the revolution in France in 1789, or thirty years after the original French régime in Canada had closed its eventful period.

More detailed evidence of the origin of this flag states that the creation of the tri-colour arose from the incident that, when the revolutionary militia were first assembled in the city of Paris, at the revolution of 1789, they had adopted blue and red, which were the ancient colours of the city of Paris, for the colours of their cockade; between these they placed the white of the soldiery of the Bourbon régime, who afterwards joined their forces, and thus they had combined the blue, white and red in the "tri-colour" as their revolutionary signal.[5]

Whether or not its colours record those of the three ancient monarchical periods, or those of the revolution, the tri-colour as a French ensign for use by the people of France, as their national flag both on land and sea, was not regularly established until a still later period, in 1794. Then it was that the Republican Convention passed the first decree[6] authorizing an ensign and directing that the French national flag (Pl. [II.] , fig. 6) shall be formed of the three colours placed vertically in equal bands—that next the staff being blue, the centre white, and the fly red.

This was the flag under which Napoleon I. won his greatest victories, both as General and Emperor; but whatever glories may have been won for it by France, yet many years before it had been even designed, or the prowess of Napoleon's armies had created its renown, the French Canadian had been fighting under the Union Jack as his patriotic ensign and adding to the history of its valiant glory by victory won by himself in defence of his own Canadian home.[7] When in Canada the tri-colour is seen flying it is raised solely out of compliment and courtesy to the French-speaking friends in modern France. The fact that the tri-colour has received any acceptance with the French-speaking Canadian may have arisen from the reason that, side by side with the Union Jack, it had participated in all the struggles and glories of the Crimea, when the two flags, the tri-colour and the Union Jack, were raised together above Sebastopol.

It is interesting to note how it is stated to have first arrived.[8] The Canadiens-Français being, by lineage and temperament, Monarchists, had shown no regard or liking for the early Revolutionary and Republican emblem, and had never raised it in Canada.

In 1853, under Victoria and Napoleon III., an entente cordiale had been established between England and France, and in that same year arrangements had been completed with the Allan Line to build new steamers and perform a regular service direct between Liverpool and Montreal. Actuated, no doubt, by the prevailing fervour, they had selected as the distinguishing, or "house," flag of their line one of the same shape and colours as the French flag, but with the broad bands reversed, the red being next the mast instead of the blue as in the French ensign.

In the spring of 1854, as their first steamer was seen entering the St. Lawrence, this flag so nearly resembled the French ensign as to cause surprise to be expressed. "What," said the older heads, "the flag of the Revolution on an English ship!" It was a novel sight, but great were the rejoicings over the establishment of the new line.

Their second ship came in dressed with many French and English flags, for war had been declared by the alliance of England and France against Russia, this being the first announcement in Canada, for there were no telegraph cables in those days.

Following this came the exploits of the allied armies in the Crimea, bringing with them the consequent profusion and intertwining of the English and French flags with which ships and business buildings were decorated to celebrate their combined victories.

Such was the entry of the tri-colour into Canada, not being introduced by the Canadians, speaking French, but by their English friends.

A quaint suggestion has been made to the writer by no less an authority than Sir James Le Moine, the historian of Quebec: "The French Canadian is very partial to display, but is primarily economical. While the simple colours of the tri-colour can be conveniently made by the most inexperienced, the details of the Union Jack are very difficult to cut and to correctly sew together. The bonne mère can easily provide out of her household treasures the materials for the one, but she must purchase the other, and this, therefore, is the reason why the tri-colour is so frequently seen in French-speaking Quebec."

The tri-colour, having never been the flag of his forefathers, carries neither allegiance nor loyalty to the French Canadian. His people have never fought under it, while many a gallant French Canadian son has poured out his blood for the Union Jack at home in defence of Canada or upon foreign shores in service in the British armies. It has never brought him liberty or protection as has his Union Jack, which has been his British flag for a century and a half, and for more than a quarter of a century before the tri-colour of the European French ever came into existence.

Another flag—although it has ceased to be a national flag, and is now the flag of a possession of the United States—should yet be mentioned by reason of the history which was told in its folds.

The Hawaiian national ensign (5) was at first composed of nine horizontal stripes of equal width, alternating white, red and blue, the top stripe being white and the bottom blue.[9]

Afterwards the lowest stripe was taken off and the new flag (Pl. [II.] , fig. 4) adopted, in which there are eight stripes, the bottom stripe being red and the British Union Jack placed in the upper corner.

The Sandwich Islands, made known to the world mainly by the tragic death of Captain Cook, in 1778, and now known as the Hawaiian Islands, had been fused into a single monarchy by the impetuous valour of King Kamehama, who, in 1794, admitted Christian missionaries to his kingdom. Its existence as an independent monarchy was thereafter maintained and was recognized by the great powers.

Internal difficulties having arisen in the kingdom and an insult been given to a British consul, the islands were ceded and the sovereignty offered to Great Britain in 1843, when, on 12th February, the Union Jack was raised on all the islands, the understanding being that the natives were to be under the protection of the flag of Great Britain, and internal order to be guaranteed pending the final disposition which might be arrived at in England between the representatives of the Hawaiians and the British Government.[10]

5. The Hawaiian Ensign.

The British did not accept the proffered transfer of the islands, but returned the sovereignty to the native government, which was thereafter to continue as an independent monarchy under the protection of Great Britain; and by an accompanying treaty all British manufactures and produce were to be admitted duty free. On July 31st, 1843, the British flag was lowered and the new Hawaiian ensign raised in its place.[11] It was in recognition of this event that the Union Jack was placed in the Hawaiian ensign.

In the same year France and England agreed never to take possession of the islands either by protectorate or in any other form.

The natives steadily decreased in number and in power, and the trade and commerce of the islands had passed almost entirely into American hands.

Dissensions had afterwards arisen under the subsequent native sovereigns, and in 1893 the Queen, Liliuokalani, was deposed by a revolution, and a republican government formed under President Dole, an American citizen.

Cession of the islands was offered in 1896 to the American Government and was refused, but in 1898 the islands were finally annexed to the United States and the American ensign raised; but the Hawaiian flag, with its Union Jack in the upper corner, continued as a local flag, and was so displayed on June 14th, 1900, at the inauguration of President Dole as Governor of the new-formed "Territory of Hawaii," among the Territories of the United States.

These instances of the origin of some of the national flags of other nations show how history is interwoven in their folds, and how they perpetuate the memories of past days or of the men who have dominated vital occasions. A singularly similar origin is associated with the creation of the Stars and Stripes, the ensign of the United States of North America (Pl. [VI.] , fig. 3), which is treated of in Chapter XVI.

[CHAPTER III.]

THE ORIGIN OF THE JACKS.

It is quite evident, then, that national flags are not merely a haphazard patchwork of coloured bunting, nor by any means "meaningless things." Their combinations have a history, and, in many cases, tell a story; but of all the national flags there is none that bears upon its folds so interesting a story, nor has its history so plainly written in its parts and colourings, as has our British "Union Jack."

Our present enterprise is to search out whence it got its name, how it was built up into its present form, and what is the meaning of each of its several parts. This is not only an enquiry of deepest interest, but is of practical and educational value, for to trace the story of the successive combinations of our national flags is to follow the history of the British race.

The flags of other nations have mostly derived their origin from association with some dominant personage, or with a particular epoch. They are, as a rule, the signal of a dynasty or the record of some revolution; but our British Union Jack records in its folds the steady and continuous growth of a great nation, and traces, by the changes made in it during centuries of adventure and progress, and by the flags in which it has been successively combined, the gradual extension of its union and methods of Constitutional Government over a world-wide Empire.

The origin of the name "Union Jack" has given rise to considerable conjecture and much interesting surmise; in the proclamation of Charles I., 1634, it is called the "Union Flagge"; in the treaty of peace made with the Dutch in 1674, in the reign of Charles II., it is mentioned as "His Majesty of Great Britain's flag or Jack," and in the proclamation of Queen Anne, in 1707, as "Our Jack, commonly called the Union Jack."

The most generally quoted suggestion given for the origin of the name is that it was acquired from the fact that the first proclamation which authorized a flag, in which the national crosses of England and Scotland were for the first time combined, was issued by James VI. of Scotland, after he had become James I. of England, and that as King James frequently signed his name in the French manner as "Jacques," this was abbreviated into "Jac," and thus his new flag came to be called a "Jack."

The derivation suggested is ingenious and interesting, but cannot be accepted as correct, for the simple reason that there were "Jacks" long before the time and reign of James I., and that their prior origin may be clearly traced.

In the earliest days of chivalry, long before the time of the Norman conquest of England, both the knights on horseback and the men on foot of the armies in the field wore a surcoat or "Jacque" (whence our word "Jacket"), extending over the body from the neck to the thighs, bearing upon it the blazon or sign either of their lord or of their nationality. Numberless examples of these are to be seen in early illuminated manuscripts, or on monuments erected in many cathedrals and sanctuaries.

In the time of the Crusaders, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when the Christian nations of Europe were combined together to rescue Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the rule of the Mohammedan, the warrior pilgrims, recruited from the different countries, wore crosses of different shapes and colours upon their surcoats, to indicate the nationalities to which they belonged, and to evidence the holy cause in which they were engaged. It was from wearing these crosses that they gained their name of "Crusaders," or cross-bearers.

The cross worn by each of the nationalities was of a different colour—that of France being red; Flanders, green; Germany, black, and Italy, yellow.

In the earlier crusades the cross worn by the English was white, but in later expeditions the red cross of St. George was adopted and worn upon the Jacque as the sign of the English, in the same way as shown in the accompanying knightly figure (6).

The continuing use of this St. George cross, and the reason for wearing it as an identification of English forces is well shown in the following extracts from the "Ordnaunces," issued to the army with which Richard II. of England invaded Scotland in 1386:

"... Also that everi man of what estate, condicion or nation thei be of, so that he be of oure partie, bere a signe of the armes of Saint George, large, bothe before and behynde upon parell, that yf he be slayne or wounded to deth, he that has so doon to hym shall not be putte to deth for defaulte of the crosse that he lacketh, and that non enemy do here the same token or crosse of Saint George, notwithstanding yf he be prisoner upon payne of deth."[12]

6. A Red Cross Knight.

A fuller understanding is afforded of the character of this "parell," as also of the early adoption of its name by references to it given in 1415:

"At those days the yoemen had their lymmes at lybertie, and their jackes were longe and easy to shote in."[13]

The sailors of the "Cinque Ports" of Hastings, Sandwich, Hythe, Romney and Dover, on the east of England, to which Winchelsea and Rye were subsequently added, and by whose municipalities, in consideration of certain privileges granted them, the royal navies were in early days principally manned, are recorded to have worn as their uniform, in 1513, "a cote of whyte cotyn, with a red crosse and the armes of ye Ports underneathe."

In the time of Queen Mary the continuation of the custom is further evidenced by entries in a contemporary diary of 1588:

"... The x day of January hevy news came to London that the French had won Cales (Calais), the whyche was the hevest tydings to England that ever was herd of.

"The xj day of January the Cete of London took up a thousand men and made them whytt cotes and red crosses and every ward of London found men.

"The xviij day of May there was sent to the shyppes men in whytt cotes and red crosses, and gones to the Queen's shyppes."[14]

These "surcoats" or "Jacques" came in time to be known as the "Jacks" of the various nationalities they represented, and it was from the raising of one of these upon a lance or staff at the bow of a ship, in order that the nationality of those on board might be made known, that a single flag bearing on it only the cross of St. George, or the cross of St. Andrew, came to be known as a "Jack." From this origin, too, the small flag-pole at the bow of a ship is still called the "Jack-staff," and similarly the short flag-pole at the stern of vessels, upon which the distinguishing Ensign of the nationality of the ship is displayed, is called the "Ensign-staff."

This custom of wearing the national Jack at the bow had not only been early established by usage, but had also been officially recognized. On the great seal of the first Lord Admiral of England, in 1409, under Henry IV., a one-masted galley is shown.[15] At the stern of the ship is the Royal Standard of the King, and at the bow a staff bearing on it the square banner or Jack of St. George, the sign of England.

Another instance of the use of these national Jacks as a sign of national union is to be noted.

During the feudal period of European history, when armed forces were called into the field, each of the nobles and leaders, as in duty bound, furnished to the cause his quota of men equipped with complete armament. These troops bore upon their arms and banners the heraldic device or coat-of-arms of their own liege lord, as a sign of "the company to which they belonged"; and in such way the particular locality from which they came, and the leadership under which they were marshalled could at once be recognized.

The Sovereigns also in their turn displayed the banner of the kingdom over which each reigned, such as the fleur-de-lis for France, the cross of St. George for England, the cross of St. Andrew for Scotland; and this banner of the king formed the ensign under which the combined forces of the royal adherents and their supporters served.

As the forces collected together came to be more the national army of the nation and less the personal adherents of their chief, it was provided in England that the liege lord of each local force should bear on his banner the cross of St. George, as well as his own coat-of-arms, the ordinance being:

"Every Standard, or Guydhome, is to hang in the chiefe the crosse of St. George and to conteyne the crest or supporter and devise of the owner."[16]

An excellent example of this is given in the standard or ensign of the forces of the Earls of Percy in the sixteenth century (Pl. [III.] , fig. 1). In the chief is the red cross of St. George, as the sign of allegiance to King and nation; in the fly is the crest of the Percys, a blue lion with other insignia, and their motto, "Esperance en Dieu," the signs of their liege lord and local country.

This flag declared its bearers to be the men of the Percy contingent, Englishmen, and soldiers of the King.

7. Colours of the 10th Royal Grenadiers, Canada.

A survival of this ancient custom exists to this day in our British military service, both in the Colonial and Imperial forces. Rifle regiments do not carry "colours," but all infantry regiments are entitled, upon receiving the royal warrant, to carry two flags, which are called "Colours" (7).

The "First," or "King's Colour," is the plain "Union Jack," in sign of allegiance to the Sovereign, and upon this, in the centre, is the number or designation of the regiment, surmounted by a royal crown. The "Second," or "Regimental Colour," has a small Union Jack in the upper corner. The body of the flag is of the local colour of the facings of the regiment. If the facings are blue, as in all "Royal" regiments, the flag is blue; if they are white, then the flag is white, having on it a large St. George's cross in addition to the small Union Jack in the upper corner. On the body of this colour are embroidered the regimental badge, the names of actions in which it has taken part, and any distinctive emblems indicating the special history of the regiment itself, and in territorial regiments the locality from which they are recruited. In this way both the national and local methods of distinction are to-day preserved and displayed in the same way as they were in original times; the Union Jack of the present day having been substituted for the St. George's cross of the first period.

Such, then, was the origin of the name Jack, and it is from the combination of the three national "Jacks" of England, Scotland and Ireland, at successive periods in their history, into one flag, that the well-known "Union Jack" of our British nation has gradually grown into its present form.

[CHAPTER IV.]

THE ENGLISH JACK.

A.D. 1194-1606.

The original leader and dominant partner in the three kingdoms, which have been the cradle of the British race throughout the world, was England, and it is her flag which forms the groundwork upon which our Union Flag has been built up.

The English Jack (Pl [I.] , fig. 1) is described in simple language as a white flag having upon it a plain red cross.

8. St. George's Jack.

This is the banner of St. George (8), the patron saint of England, and in heraldic language is described as "Argent, a cross gules" (on silver-white a plain red cross).

The great Christian hero, St. George, is stated by those who have made most intimate search into his legend and history[17] to have been descended from a noble Cappadocian Christian family, and to have been beheaded for his faith on the 23rd April, A.D. 303, during the persecution of the Christians by the Emperor Diocletian. The anniversary of that day is for that reason celebrated as St. George's Day. He was a soldier of highest renown, a knight of purest honour, and many exploits of his heroism and courage are narrated in ancient prose and poetry.

About three miles north along the shore of the Mediterranean, from the city of Beyrut (Beyrout), there was in the time of the Crusaders, and still remains, an ancient grotto cut into the rock, and famous as being the traditional place where the gallant knight St. George,

"Y' cladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt."[18]

was reputed to have performed one of his most doughty deeds, and had "redeemed the King's daughter out of the fiery jaws of a dreadful dragon.[19]

The memory of St. George has always been greatly revered in the East, particularly by the Christian Greek Church, by which he was acclaimed as the "Victorious One," the "Champion Knight of Christendom," and early accepted as the protector saint of soldiers and sailors. One of the first churches erected by Constantine the Great, about A.D. 313, and many other Eastern churches, were dedicated to him.

It is to be noted, however, that St. George has never been canonized by the Roman Church, nor his name placed in her calendar of sacred saints. His name, like those of St. Christopher, St. Sebastian and St. Nicholas, was only included in a list issued in A.D. 494, by Pope Gelasius, as being among those "whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God.[20]

The form of his cross is that known as the Greek Cross, the four arms being at right angles to each other, and in this form is displayed in the upper corner of the national Greek ensign, in this case as a white cross on a blue ground. (Pl [II.], fig. 3.)

This Greek religious connection has also caused the adoption of the cross of St. George in the insignia of other nations. The Czar of Russia is not only the "Autocrat of the People of the Empire of all the Russias," but he is also the "Supreme Head of the Orthodox Faith," which in Russia is represented by the Greek Church. His Imperial Standard is a yellow flag upon which is displayed a black two-headed eagle bearing upon its breast a red shield on which is emblazoned in white the figure of St. George slaying a dragon. This same colouring, white on red, is followed in the decoration of the Order of St. George, which is the second order of knighthood in Russia, and in the white cross of St. George, as shown in the official flags of the Russian ambassadors.

On the royal arms of Austria the black two-headed eagle bears on its breast a shield with a red ground having on it a white St. George's cross.

The insignia of eight nations bear the Greek cross of the St. George shape, but in four different colours on grounds of three different colours:

England is, however, the only nation which has adopted the Red cross of St. George as its special national ensign.

The cry of "St. George for Merrie England" has re-echoed through so many centuries that his place as the patron saint of the kingdom is firmly established. Wherever ships have sailed, there the red cross of St. George has been carried by the sailor-nation who chose him as their hero.

The incident from which came his adoption as patron saint is thus narrated in the early chronicles. In 1190, Richard I., Cœur de Lion, of England, had joined the French, Germans and Franks in the third great crusade to the Holy Land; but while the other nations proceeded overland to the seat of war, Richard built and engaged a great fleet, in which he conveyed his English troops to Palestine by sea. His armament consisted of "254 talle shippes and about three score galliots." Sailing down the eastern shore with these and arriving off the coast, he won a gallant sea-fight over the Saracens near Beyrut, and the grotto of St. George, and by this victory intercepted the reinforcements which their ships were carrying to the relief of Acre, at that time being besieged by the combined armies of the Crusaders.

St. George, the redresser of wrongs, the protector of women, the model of Christian chivalry, and the tutelary saint of England, was not a seafaring hero, nor himself connected with the sea, but it was after and in memory of their sailors' victory near the scene of his exploits that the seafaring nation adopted him as their patron saint.

The red cross emblem of St. George is stated by the chroniclers to have been at once thereafter adopted by Richard I., who immediately placed himself and his army under the especial protection of the Saint, raised his banner at their head, and is reported to have introduced the emblem into England itself after his return in 1194. Further evidence of its introduction and its continued use is given by the record that in 1222 St. George's Day was ordered to be kept as a holiday in England.[21]

Some aver that the emblem was not generally accepted until under Edward I., in 1274. This prince, before his accession to the throne, had served in the last Crusades, and during that time had visited the scene of the victory and the grotto of the Saint. It is pointed out that this visit of Prince Edward to Palestine coincided with the change made in their badge by the English Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem from an eight-pointed Maltese cross to a straight white Greek cross, and that at the time of this change came the appearance upon the English banners of the St. George's cross, but of the English national colour red,[22] therefore they deduce that the further employment of the emblem as the national flag was then additionally authorized by Edward I.

9. The Borough Seal of Lyme Regis, 1284.

From this last date (1274) onward the St. George's cross and the legend of "St. George and the Dragon" in England are, at all events, in plain evidence. An early instance is that found in the borough of Lyme Regis, in Dorset, to which Edward I., in 1284, granted its first charter of incorporation and its official seal. A photo reproduction of a wax impression of this borough seal (9), taken from an old "Toll lease" is here given. The flag of St. George is seen at the mast-head, and below it the Royal Standard of Richard I., with its three lions for England, carried by Edward in Palestine during the lifetime of his father. At the bow of the ship is the figure of the Saint represented in the act of slaying the dragon, and having on his shield the St. George's cross.

"And on his breast a bloodie crosse he bore, The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, And dead, as living, ever Him adored: Upon his shield the like was also scor'd, For soveraine hope which in his helpe he had. Right faithful true he was in deede and word."[23]

The religious and Christian attributes of St. George are commemorated on the seal by the representation of the Crucifixion and by the Saint, the head of whose spear is a St. George's cross, being shown as in angel form. The sea tradition of his adoption is also sustained by the characteristic introduction of the "galley" into the design.

Around the edge of the seal is the rude lettering of the inscription in Latin: "Sigillum: Comune: De: Lim" ("The common seal of Lyme"). Near the top may be seen the "star and crescent" badge of Richard I., adopted by him as a record of his naval victory, and which is still used as an "admiralty badge" upon the epaulettes of admirals of the British navy.

This seal of Lyme Regis is said to be the earliest representation of St. George and the dragon known in England.

The same form of cross was placed by Edward I., in 1294, upon the monumental crosses which he raised at Cheapside, Charing Cross and other places, in memory of his loved Queen Eleanor, to mark the spots at which her body rested during the funeral procession when her remains were carried from Lincoln through Northampton to London.

Another instance of a later date is found on a "sepulchral brass" (10), placed to the memory of Sir Hugh Hastings in Elsing Church, Norfolk, and dated 1347.

These plates of engraved brass, inserted in the stone coverings of so many graves in the interior of the churches in England, are most interesting examples of early memorial art. The figure of the deceased is usually drawn in full length upon them in lines cut deeply into the metal, and is accompanied by an inscription setting forth his deeds and his name.

In the upper part of the architectural tracery surrounding the figure on the brass in question is a circle 8-1/4 inches in diameter, in which the figure of St. George is as shown. The Saint here appears as a knight, clad in full armour and mounted upon horseback, representing him in his character as the leader of chivalry and knightly manhood. A further development of the attribute of manly vigour will be noted in that, instead of being shown as piercing, as previously, the fiery dragon of the ancient legend, he is now represented as slaying the equally typical two-legged demon of vice. This representation still further exemplifies the teaching and allegory of the emblem of "St. George and the Dragon."

10. Brass in Elsing Church, 1347.

St. George represents the Principle of Good, the Dragon the Principle of Evil. It is the contest between virtue and vice, in which the knight by his virtues prevails—a splendid emblem for a Christian people.

This photo reproduction is from a "rubbing" in black lead recently taken from the brass, and shows, so far as the reduced scale will permit, the St. George's crosses upon the surcoat and shield of the knight and the trappings of his horse.

In 1350, on St. George's Day, the "most noble Order of the Garter" was instituted by Edward III., with magnificent ceremony in the St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. This is the highest order of knighthood in the kingdom. Its jewel, called "The George," is a representation of St. George and the Dragon, and in the centre of the "Star" of the Order is the red cross of St. George.

So onward through all the centuries, and now St. George is the acclaimed patron saint of England and all Englishmen.

It was under this red cross banner of St. George that Richard I., the Lion-hearted, after proving their seamanship in victory and giving his men their battle-cry, "Saint George—forward!"[24] showed the mettle of his English Crusaders in the battles of the Holy Land, and led them to the walls of Jerusalem. With it the fleets of Edward I. claimed and maintained the "lordship of the Narrow Seas." Under this single red cross flag the ships of England won the epochal naval victory of Sluys, where the English bowman shot his feathered shafts from shipboard as blithely as when afterwards on land the French battlefields resounded to the cry of "England and St. George," when the undying glories of Cressy and Poictiers were achieved, and again at Agincourt when Henry V. led on his men to victory. Under it, too, Cabot discovered Cape Breton, Drake sailed around the world, Frobisher sought the Northwest passage, Raleigh founded Virginia, and the navy of Elizabeth carried confusion into the ill-fated Spanish Armada.

This is a "glory roll" which justifies the name of England as "Mistress of the Seas." Her patron saint was won as a record of naval victory. With this red cross flag of St. George flying above them, her English sailors swept the seas around their white-cliffed coasts, and made the ships of all other nations do obeisance to it. With it they penetrated distant oceans, and planted it on previously unknown lands as signs of the sovereignty of their king, making the power of England and England's flag known throughout the circle of the world.

All this was done before the time when the sister-nations had joined their flags with hers, and it is a just tribute to the seafaring prowess of the English people, and to the victories won by the English Jack, that the single St. George's cross is in the British fleets the Admiral's Flag, and flies as his badge of rank; that it is in the Command Pennant of all captains and officers in command of ships, and that the English red cross flag is the groundwork of the White Ensign of the British navy (Pl. [VIII.], fig. 2). This is the "distinction flag" of the British navy, allowed to be carried only by His Majesty's ships-of-war, and restricted, except by special grant, solely to those bearing the Royal commission.[25]

Thus has the memory of Richard I. and his men been preserved, and all honour done to the "Mariners of England," the sons of St. George, whose single red cross flag, the English Jack, has worthily won the poet's praise:

"Ye mariners of England! That guard our native seas, Whose flag has braved a thousand years The battle and the breeze.

"The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn, Till danger's troubled night depart, And the star of Peace return."[26]

[CHAPTER V.]

THE SUPREMACY OF THE ENGLISH JACK.

A.D. 871-1606.

While it is true that flags and banners had grown up on land from the necessity of having some means of identifying the knights and nobles, whose faces were encased and hidden from sight within their helmets, yet it was at sea that they attained to their greatest estimation. There the flag upon the mast became the ensign of the nation to which the vessel belonged, and formed the very embodiment of its power. To fly the flag was an act of defiance, to lower it an evidence of submission, and thus the motions of these little coloured cloths at sea became of highest importance.

The supremacy of one nation over another was measured most readily by the precedence which its flag received from the ships of other nationalities. National pride, therefore, became involved in the question of the supremacy of the flag at sea, and in this contest the English were not behindhand in taking their share, for the supremacy of the sea meant to England something more than the mere precedence of her flag. It meant that no other power should be allowed to surpass her as a naval power; not that she desired to carry strife against their countries, but esteemed it more for the protection of her own shores at home, and the preservation of peace along the confines of her island seas.

This faith in the maintenance of the Supremacy of the Seas remains potent to this present day, as is shown by the demand of the British people that their navy shall be maintained at a two-power standard, and so be equal in strength to the navies of any other two of the nations which sail the oceans. It is no new ardour, nor the outcome of any modern development or exigency, but is the outgrowth of the determination of the nation from its earliest days to maintain the supremacy of its flag, and is strengthened by the lessons learned in those centuries.

Alfred the Great of England (871-901) was the first to establish any supremacy for the English flag, and to him is attributed the first gathering together of a Royal navy, the creation of an efficient force at sea being a portion of that sea-policy which he so early declared, and which has ever since been the ruling guide of the English people. The true defence of England lay, Alfred considered, in maintaining a fleet at sea of sufficient power to stretch out afar, rather than in trusting to fortifications for effective land resistance when the enemy had reached her shores; that it was better to beat the enemy at sea before he has a chance to land, and thus to forestall invasion before it came too near—a policy which in these days of steam is simply being reproduced by the creation of "Dreadnoughts," swift and strong, to hit hard on distant seas. The bulwarks of England were considered in his time, as they are still considered, to be her ships at sea rather than the parapets of her forts on land.

"Britannia needs no bulwarks, No towers along the steep; Her march is o'er the mountain waves, Her home is on the deep."[27]

Introducing galleys longer and faster than those of the Danes,[28] Alfred kept his enemies at a respectful distance, and, dwelling secure under the protection of his fleet, was thus enabled to devote himself with untrammelled energy to the establishment of the internal government of his kingdom.

His successors followed up his ideas, and under Athelstane (901) the creation of an English merchant navy was also developed. Every inducement was offered to merchants who should engage in maritime ventures. Among other decrees then made was one that, "if a merchant so thrives that he pass thrice over the wide seas in his own craft he was henceforth a Thane righte worthie."[29] Thus honours were to be won as well as wealth, and in pursuit of both the merchants of England extended their energies to wider traffic on the seas.

King Edgar (973-75), by virtue of his navy, won and assumed the title of "Supreme Lord and Governor of the Ocean lying around about Britain." Thus did the English flag, carried by its navies, sail the seas. But Harold, the last of the Saxon kings, instead of maintaining his ships in equipment and fitness to protect his shores, allowed them, for want of adequate provisions, to be dispersed from their station behind the Isle of Wight, and so, forgetting the teachings of Alfred, left his southern coasts unguarded and let the Norman invader have opportunity to land, an opportunity which was promptly seized.

The Norman monarchs of England held in their turn to the supremacy which the early Saxon kings had claimed for her flag at sea.

When the conquest of England, in 1066, had been completely effected by the Norman forces, the shores on each side of the "narrow seas" between England and Normandy were combined under the rule of William the Conqueror, communication by water increased between the two portions of his realm, and the maritime interests of the people were greatly extended and established.

Richard I. showed England to the other nations, during the Crusades, as a strong maritime power. King John followed in his footsteps, and in 1200, the second year of his reign, issued his declaration directing that ships of all other nations must honour his Royal flag:

"If any lieutenant of the King's fleet in any naval expedition, do meet with on the sea any ship or vessels, laden or unladen, that will not vail and lower their sails at the command of the Lieutenant of the King or the King's Admiral, but shall fight with them of the fleet, such, if taken, shall be reported as enemies, and the vessels and goods shall be seized and forfeited as the goods of enemies."

The supremacy which King John thus claimed, his successors afterwards maintained and extended, so that under Edward I., Spain, Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Norway, being all the other nations, except France, which bordered on the adjacent seas, joined in according to England "possession of the sovereignty of the English seas and the Isles therein,"[30] together with admission of the right which the English had of maintaining sovereign guard over these seas, and over all the ships of other Dominions, as well as their own, which might be passing through them.

Edward II. was given, in 1320, the title of "Lord of the Seas."[31]

Edward III., himself a sailor-king and commander of his fleets, was fully imbued with the force of the Alfred maxim, so that when invasion threatened England he said, "he deemed it better with a strong hand to go seek the enemy in his own country than wait ignobly at home for the threatened danger."[32] Putting his maxim into action he led his fleet across the Channel, and his victory over the French fleet at Sluys, off Flanders, on the 24th June, 1340, was the Trafalgar of its day, and the resulting supremacy of the English Jack on the narrow seas enabled him to land his forces on the foreign shores, when he subsequently invaded France to establish his claim to the French throne.

The prowess of himself and of his seamen in their victory over the French and Spanish fleets won for Edward the proud title of "King of the Seas," in token of which he was represented upon his gold coinage standing in a ship "full royally apparelled."[33]

During the Wars of the Roses less attention was given by the nation to maritime matters, and while the English were so busily engaged in fighting amongst themselves, the Dutch of the Netherlands, under the Duke of Burgundy, developed a large carrying trade, and so increased their fleets that, in 1485, at the accession of Henry VII., they had become a formidable shipping rival of England, and were a thorn in the side of France. Over the ships of the French the Dutch so lorded it on the narrow seas that, to quote Philip de Commines, their

"navy was so mighty and strong, that no man durst stir in these narrow seas for fear of it making war upon the King of France's subjects and threatening them everywhere."

Two flags, the striped standard of the Dutch and the red cross Jack of the English, were now rivalling each other on the adjacent seas and on the Atlantic. The contest for the supremacy which had begun was continued for nearly two hundred years thereafter.

In the time of Henry VII. more attention was given to merchant shipping and foreign adventure. Cabot carried the English flag across the Atlantic under the license which he and his associates received from Henry VII., empowering them

"to seek out and find whatsoever isles, countries, regions, or provinces of the heathen and infidels, whatsoever they might be; and set up his banner on every isle or mainland by them newly found."

With this authority for its exploits the red cross of St. George was planted, in 1497, on the shores of Newfoundland and Florida, and the English Jack thus first carried into America formed the foundation for the subsequent British claim to sovereignty over all the intervening coasts along the Atlantic.

Under Henry VIII. England began to bestir herself in making provision for a regular navy. A drawing in the Pepysian Library gives the details of the Henri Grace à Dieu (11), built in 1515 by order of Henry VIII., which was the greatest warship up to that time built in England, and has been termed the "parent of the British Navy." At the four mastheads fly St. George's ensigns, and from the bowsprit end and from each of the round tops upon the lower masts are long streamers with the St. George's cross, very similar in form to the naval pennants of the present day. The castellated building at the bow, and the hooks with which the yards are armed, tell of the derivation of the nautical terms "forecastle" and "yard arm" still in use.

With such improved armament the cross of St. George continued to ruffle its way on the narrow seas, and widened the scope of its domain.

The supremacy claimed for the English Jack never lost anything at the hands of its bearers, and an event which occurred in the reign of Queen Mary gives a vivid picture of the boldness of the sea-dogs by whom it was carried, and of how they held their own over any rival craft:

11. The "Henri Grace À Dieu," 1515.

(From the Pepysian collection.)

The Spanish fleet, of one hundred and sixty sail, was escorting Philip II., of Spain, when coming to his marriage with the English Queen, in 1554. It was met off Southampton by the English fleet, of twenty-eight sail, under Lord William Howard, who was then "Lord High Admiral in the narrow seas." The Spanish fleet, with their King on board, was flying the Royal flag of Spain, and was proceeding to pass the English ships without paying the customary honours. The English admiral promptly fired a shot into the Spanish admiral's ship, and the whole fleet was obliged to strike their colours and lower their topsails in homage to the English flag. Not until this salute had been properly done would Howard permit his own squadron to salute the Spanish King.[34]

Under Elizabeth seamanship mightily increased. Her merchant fleets, from being mere coasters, extended their ventures to far distant voyages, in some of which the Queen herself was said to have had an interest; and while before her time soldiers had exceeded seamen in numbers, the positions were now reversed.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada, in 1588, was one of the crowning achievements of the supremacy of the English Jack, yet it would almost seem as though the glorious flag had, in the never-to-be-forgotten action of the undaunted Revenge, kept for the closing years of its single cross period the grandest of all the many strifes in which it had been engaged.

England and Spain were then at open war. The English fleet, consisting of six Queen's ships, six victuallers of London, and two or three pinnaces, was riding at anchor near the island of Flores, in the Azores, waiting for the coming of the Spanish fleet, which was expected to pass on its way from the West Indies, where it had wintered the preceding year. On the 1st September, 1591, the enemy came in sight, numbering fifty-three sail, "the first time since the great Armada that the King of Spain had shown himself so strong at sea."[35]

The English had been refitting their equipment, the sick had all been sent on shore, and their ships were not in readiness to meet so overwhelming an armament. On the approach of the Spaniards, and to save the fleet from being penned in by them along the coast, five of the English ships slipped their cables, and together with the consorts sailed out to sea. Sir Richard Grenville, in the Revenge, was left behind to collect the men on shore and bring off the sick, and so, after having done this duty, came out alone to meet the enemy, which was marshalled in long extended line outside the port. He might have sailed around their wing, but this would have been an admission of inferiority, and, bold to recklessness, he thrust his little ship right through the centre of their line. Rather than strike his flag, he withstood the onset of all the Spanish fleet, which closed in succession around him, and thus this century of the red cross Jack closed with a sea-fight worthy of its story, and one which has been preserved by a Poet Laureate in undying verse, whose lines ought to be known by every British boy:

"He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight, And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight, With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow. 'Shall we fight or shall we fly? Good Sir Richard, tell us now, For to fight is but to die! There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set,' And Sir Richard said again: 'We be all good English men. Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil, For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet.'

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea, But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and fifty-three. Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came, Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame; Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame. For some were sunk, and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no more— God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?"[36]

In such way, audacious in victory and unconquered in defeat, the English sailors, beneath their English Jack, held for the mastery of the oceans from Alfred to Elizabeth, and laid the foundations of that maritime spirit which still holds for Great Britain the proud supremacy of the seas.

[CHAPTER VI.]

THE SCOTTISH JACK.

From a very early period St. Andrew has been esteemed as the patron saint of Scotland, and held in veneration quite as strong as that entertained in England for St. George. The "saltire," or diagonal cross of St. Andrew (12), shaped like the letter X is attributed to the tradition that the saint, considering himself unworthy to be crucified on a cross of the same shape as that on which his Saviour had suffered, had, by his own choice, been crucified with legs and arms extended upon a cross of this shape, and, therefore, it has been accepted as the emblem of his martyrdom.

12. St. Andrew's Jack.

The "Scottish Jack" (Pl [I.], fig. 2) is a white oblong cross upon a blue ground. This is the banner of St. Andrew (12), and in heraldic language is described as "Azure, a saltire argent" (on azure blue, a silver-white saltire).

How St. Andrew came to be adopted as the patron saint of Scotland is a subject of much varying conjecture. It is said that in the early centuries, about A.D. 370, some relics of the apostle St. Andrew were being brought to Scotland by some Greek monks, and although the vessel carrying them was wrecked and became a total loss, the sacred bones were brought safe to shore at the port in the County of Fife, still called St. Andrews, where a church was erected to his memory.

The most favoured tradition as to the date of his authorized adoption as a patron saint is that it occurred in A.D. 987, when Hungus, king of the Picts, was being attacked by Athelstane, the king of the West Saxons,[37] Achaius, king of the Scots, with 10,000 of his Scottish subjects, came to the relief of Hungus, and the two kings joined their forces to repel the Southern invaders. The Scottish leaders, face to face with so formidable a foe, were passing the night in prayer to God and St. Andrew, when upon the background of the blue sky there appeared, formed in white clouds, the figure of the white cross of the martyr saint. Reanimated by this answering sign, the Scottish soldiers entered the fray with enthusiastic valour, and beset the English with such ardour as to drive them in confusion from the field, leaving their king, Athelstane, behind them dead among the slain. Since that time the white saltire cross, upon a blue ground, the banner of St. Andrew, has been carried by the Scots as their national ensign.

This was the flag carried by the great Scottish national hero, Robert-the-Bruce, whose valour won for him the crown of Scotland, and whose descendants, the earls of Elgin, still bear his banner on their coatof-arms. At Bannockburn, in 1314, this emblem of Bruce rose victorious over Edward II. and his stolid Englishmen. Its use was continued in 1385, when the Scots, stirred up and aided by Charles VI. of France, invaded and despoiled the border counties of England, in which expeditions both they and their French auxiliaries wore a white St. Andrew's cross upon their jacques, both before and behind, in order that they might distinguish the soldiers of their combined companies from the forces of the foe.[38]

But St. Andrew's flag was not always victorious. At Chevy Chase and Flodden Field it suffered defeat, but only in such wise as to prove the truth of the warning motto of the prickly Scotch thistle, "Nemo me impune lacessit"—(No one may touch me with impunity).

The Scottish Jack in all these early centuries, unlike its English compeer, does not appear to have been carried by Scotsmen far afield, nor in expeditions across the seas. On land, the Scots used it mainly as a sign of recognition during the forays which they kept up with unceasing vigour on the neighbouring kingdoms of England and Ireland; and at sea its scene of action was kept measurably near to their own shores.

Scotland, being so far removed from the fleets of the southern nations of Europe, did not need a regular navy, and never had one of any size,[39] but her far northern coasts, indented with deep bays and bordered by wild fastnesses, adapted themselves admirably to the use to which they were mainly put, of being the lair from which hardy, venturesome freebooters, in those times called "sea rovers," sailed forth in their "talle shippes" (13), and pounced down upon the vessels of the passersby. The exploits of some of these sailors, under the St. Andrew's Jack, crop out from time to time with splendid audacity in the history of the centuries. One "Mercer, a Scottish rover," during the reign of Richard II. of England, so harried the merchant shipping of England that, in 1378, Alderman John Philpot, "a worshipful citizen of London," equipped an expedition at his own expense to cramp the energies of the marauder, and meeting Mercer and fifteen Spanish ships, which were acting with him, brought the whole fleet, "besides great riches which were found on board," in triumph into port at Scarborough in Yorkshire. Philpot was haled before the English royal authorities for having dared "to set forth a navy of men-of-war without the advice of the King's Council," but the end was considered to have justified the means, and the bold citizen, who by his own action had put down the annoyance with which the officers of the realm should have dealt, was, after having himself stoutly berated the Council for their sluggishness, let go free.

13. Scotch "Talle Shippe," 16th Century.

(From a painting by Vandyck.)

Sir Andrew Wood, of Leith, who for a long time pillaged the English ships and set the navy of Henry VII. at defiance, was another doughty champion of the St. Andrew's cross.

Growing bolder in his defiance, he challenged the English Royal Navy to a contest. The challenge was accepted, and three chosen ships were sent to meet him. These he overmastered, and carried off his prizes and their crews to Dundee, from where, after the wounded had been cared for, and the damages of the vessels repaired, James IV. of Scotland returned the ships and their men to Henry, saying, "the contest had been for honour, not for booty."[40]

But the greatest hero of them all, the one whose deeds have woven themselves into the folklore of the Scottish race, was Sir Andrew Barton, who in the time of Henry VIII. not only plundered his English neighbours, but also took toll of the ships of all other nations without regard to their flag, making himself the terror of the North Seas. An old ballad tells in quaint style what an English merchant of Newcastle, whose ships had fallen into the hands of Barton, is said to have reported to the English Admiral, who was in charge of the "Narrow Seas":

"Hast thou not herde, Lord Howard bold, As thou hast sailed by day and by night, Of a Scottish rover on the seas? Men call hym Sir Andrewe Barton, Knyte?

"He is brasse within and steel withoute, With bemes on his toppe-castle strong, And eighteen piece of ordnaunce He carries on each side along.

"And he hath a pinnace derely dight, St. Andrew's cross yat is his guide; His pinnace bereth nine score men And fifteen cannons on each side.

"Were ye twenty ships and he but one, I swear by kirk, and bower and hall, He would overcome them every one If once his bemes they do down fall."

Sir Andrew was the last of the freebooters, as the rise of the navy of Henry VIII., and the union of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland by James I. under one crown, put an end to these reprisals by the subjects of the one nation on the other; yet, as we shall see, it was the remnants of these very rivalries thus engendered between the single cross flags of St. Andrew and St. George which led to these national Jacks of the two nations being afterwards joined together to form one flag.

St. Andrew is also venerated by the Russians as a national saint, their tradition being that it was through the Apostle St. Andrew that the gospel of Christianity had been brought to their people. Their highest order of knighthood, created by Peter the Great, in 1698, is the Order of St. Andrew, and the national flag of Russia, borne by all their people and on their imperial navy, is the St. Andrew's cross. It is also used on the masthead of their war vessels to indicate the rank of an admiral.

It will be remembered that the Russians have transposed the colours of the banner of St. George from a red cross on a white ground, as on the English Jack, to be on theirs a white cross on a red ground. So also they have transposed the colours on their St. Andrew's flag to be a blue cross on a white ground instead of a white cross on a blue ground as on the Scottish flag.

[CHAPTER VII.]

THE "ADDITIONAL" UNION JACK OF JAMES I.

A.D. 1606-1648.

14. Royal Arms of England, Henry V., 1413, to Elizabeth.

The kingdoms of England and Scotland had passed through their centuries of dissension and conflict when at length, in March, 1603, upon the death of his second cousin, Elizabeth, Queen of England, James VI., King of Scotland, succeeded to her throne, and became also King James I. of England. Before entering upon the subject of the joining of the two national Jacks in one flag, it may be well to consider the changes then made in the Royal Standard in consequence of this union of the crowns. The Royal Standard is the special personal flag of the Sovereign, and wears upon it his Royal arms emblazoned with "devise" or insignia of the kingdoms over which he rules. James, upon ascending the throne of England, immediately issued a proclamation instructing a change to be made in its then existing form (14). Richard I., Cœur de Lion, had displayed on his Royal Standard the three golden lions on a red ground, the sign of England. To these Henry V. had added three golden fleur-de-lis on a blue ground, typifying his right to the throne of France. This standard was used thereafter by all his successors, the sovereigns of England, and by Elizabeth. A change was now made by James to represent his additional sovereignties. To the standard of Elizabeth he added the lion rampant of Scotland and also the harp of Ireland, which had not previously been included in the Royal Arms (15), thus placing the three lions for England and three fleurs-de-lis for France in the first and fourth quarters; the lion rampant for Scotland in the second, and the harp for Ireland in the third quarter.

15. Royal Arms of James I., 1603.

While he changed the English Royal Standard, no change was instructed to be made, nor was evidently considered to be necessary, in the English national flag of St. George, which continued to be used as previously on the English ships by his new subjects. Thus in the early years of the reign of James, the English and Scotch ships continued to use their respective "red crosse" and "white crosse" Jacks, exactly as they had done prior to his accession to the English throne.

The nations had now been brought into closer contact, and the movement of shipping along their shores much increased as each was relieved from any fear of attack by the other.

Each nation, no doubt, retained a predilection for its own national flag—a preference which its adherents expressed each in their own way, and most probably in terms not untinged by caustic references to controversies and contentions of previous days.

When James had ascended the throne of England, it was his great desire to be styled King of "Great Britain," as well as of "France and Ireland." He had caused himself at the outset to be so proclaimed, and afterwards used the phrase in his proclamations, but without due authority. During the first year of his reign opinions on the point were asked of the Judges of the courts, and also of the Lords and Commons of England, but the replies of all were unanimously against his right to the assumption of any such title, as being one which might seem to indicate a fusion of the two kingdoms.

The fact was, that although the two kingdoms of Scotland and England had been joined in allegiance to the same sovereign, who was equally king of each, yet as each kingdom still retained its own separate parliament, their union had not been made adequately complete. The King had particularly desired to complete this union. In a proclamation he issued, he states he had found among the "better disposed" of his subjects

"a most earnest desire that the sayd happy union should be perfected, the memory of all preterite discontentments abolished, and all the inhabitants of both the realms to be the subjects of one kingdom."

He says he will himself use every diligence to have it perfected,

"with the advice of the states and parliament of both the kingdoms, and in the meantime till the said union be established with due solemnite aforesaid, His Majesty doth repute, hold and esteem both the two realms as presently united, and as one realm and kingdome, and the subjects of both the realms as one people, brethren and members of one body."

But charm he never so wisely, the King could not get his subjects to see matters in the same light as himself, nor was he able to get their Parliaments to unite.

Thus it occurred that in 1606, in the fourth year after the joining of the two thrones, the King, finding that difficulties kept arising about their flags between the subjects of his two adjacent kingdoms, considered it advisable to issue a proclamation declaring the manner in which they were in future to display their national Jacks, and also authorizing a new flag, which was to be used by each in addition to their own national flag. This flag was the "additional" Jack of James I. (16).

16. Jack of James I., 1606.

It is probable that the English sailor had objected to seeing the Scottish cross raised on the mast above his English flag, and the Scotsman, on his part, too, did not like to see St. Andrew below St. George. The additional flag was designed for the purpose of meeting this difficulty, and was ordered to be raised by itself upon the mainmast. It is evident that some ships had been flying both the national flags, for, as a further precaution, particular instruction was given that each ship should fly only one national cross, and this was to be only the cross of its own nationality. All controversy as to the precedence of the respective Jacks was thus intended to be brought to an end.

This proclamation of 1606, as copied from an original issue in the British Museum, reads as follows:

"A proclamation declaring what Flagges South and North Britaines shall beare at Sea.

"BY THE KING:

"Whereas, some difference hath arisen between our subjects of South and North Britaine travelling by Seas, about the bearing of their Flagges: For the avoiding of all such contentions hereafter wee have, with the advice of Our Councell, ordered: That from henceforth all our subjects of this Isle and Kingdome of Great Britaine, and all our members thereof, shall beare in their maine toppe the Red Crosse, commonly called St. George's Crosse, and the White Crosse, commonly called St. Andrew's Crosse, joyned together according to the forme made by our heralds, and sent by us to our Admerell to be published to our subjects; and in their fore-toppe our Subjects of South Britaine shall weare the Red Crosse onely as they were wont, and our Subjects of North Britaine in their fore-toppe the White Crosse onely as they were accustomed.

"Wherefore wee will and command all our Subjects to be conformable and obedient to this our Order, and that from henceforth they do not use to beare their flagges in any other sort, as they will answere to contrary at their peril.

"Given at our Palace of Westminster, the twelfth day of April, in the fourth yere of our Reine of Great Britaine, France and Ireland, etc. God save the King."

This King's Jack, which subsequently came to be commonly known as the "Union Flagge," was, it will be noted, not intended to supersede the existing national Jacks, for it was directed to be displayed in addition to, and at the same time with, the Jack of each nation. The new flag of the King was to be raised by itself on the mainmast, and the old national flag on the foremast, so that each of these flags should be kept separate from one another.

The reason for this separate use of two flags is evident, one which is fully confirmed in the creation of the Union Jacks which succeeded one another in subsequent reigns.

The reason was that the two Parliaments of the nations had not been united in one, and, therefore, it was that each nation continued to retain its own distinctive national cross, which it flew on the flagstaff as the sign of its own particular nationality, and which was, therefore, not displaced by the King's newly created flag.

PLATE III.

The position of the flag was, in 1606, regulated to be:

The construction of the new flag presents some peculiarities.

In this "additional" Jack of James I. (Pl. [III.], fig. 2), the red cross of St. George and its white ground, being the "St. George's crosse," had been ordered by the proclamation to be united with the white cross of St. Andrew and its blue ground, being the "St. Andrewe's crosse," the two flags being "joyned together according to the forme made by our heralds." In this "joining" the white ground of St. George's flag was reduced almost to a nullity.

As the form was the creation of heralds, it was made according to the strict heraldic rules of their highly technical craft. In heraldry, a narrow border of white or gold, termed a "fimbriation," is always introduced where colour would otherwise touch on colour for the purpose of keeping the colours separate, the technical statement of the rule being, "metal cannot be placed upon metal, nor colour upon colour." The heralds, therefore, in conformity with their tendencies, reduced the white ground of the St. George flag until it became only a narrow margin of white, just sufficient to keep the red of the cross of St. George from touching the blue ground of St. Andrew's flag upon which it was laid, or so that the white ground became simply "a fimbriation to the red cross of St. George."

The union of the two flags resulted in the Scotsman getting a good share of all that was going. It is true the crosses of the two flags were given equal display, but the white ground of the St. George's English Jack had entirely disappeared, while the blue ground of the St. Andrew's had been left in occupation of all the remaining space. No wonder that an English admiral of the "narrow seas," hankering after his old St. George Jack, says, a few years afterwards, of this new flag: "Though it may be more honour to both the kingdoms to be thus linked and united together, yet, in view of the spectators, it makes not so fair a show, if it would please His Majesty."[41]

The Scotsmen also raised objection to the cross of St. George having been placed over and in front of that of St. Andrew.[42] With, what appears to us now, much quaintness of language, the Scottish Privy Council made its formal complaint to His Majesty in a letter of 7th August, 1606, saying that,

"the forme and patrone of the flagges of schippis sent down heir and commandit to be ressavit and used be the subjectis of both kingdomes is vereie prejudicial to the fredome and dignitie of this Estate, and wil gif occasion to reprotche—becaus as your Sacred Majestie may persave, the Scottis Croce, callit Sanctandrois Croce, is troyse dividit, and the English Croce, called Sanct George, drawne through the Scottis Croce, which is thereby obscurit."

Either one or the other of the crosses had to be in front, but as the whole of their blue ground had been retained, while the Englishman had lost all the white ground of his flag, the objection was not entertained.

This two-crossed Jack of James I., 1606, continued in use in the Royal Navy for over a century, with the exception of its retirement during the changes which, as we shall hereafter note, were made under Cromwell. During its term the British kingdom, which had already under the English Jack colonized the mainland of America from Massachusetts to Virginia, became more than ever an American power; for, under this new Jack, the islands which surrounded the coast, namely, the West Indies, Barbadoes, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Antigua and Jamaica, were added to the British Crown. On the continent of Europe as well, the victorious movements of the flag did not slacken, for under it Gibraltar was pounced upon and taken by Admiral Rooke, and Blenheim, the master victory of the great Marlborough, was won. This was a record and "glory roll" on both the continents worthy of the two races, whose forces had been joined at its creation.

Its position was, however, not throughout continuous, for successive changes were introduced in the regulations regarding its use during the century within which it achieved its varied career. All these changes, its alternating disappearances and reappearances, show that this King's Jack of James I. was not a flag which denoted a completed union, although by habit it came to be called the "Union Flagge," and subsequently the "Union Jack," of the nations, but was one which was introduced for another purpose, and carried a different signification, being that of the union of the thrones in one sovereign. Usage has, however, so long attached the name to this two-crossed flag of James I., that it may be well to consider it our first Union Jack.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

THE ENGLISH JACK RESTORED.

As a Single Jack 1648-1660

In the corner of the Ensign Red 1648-1707

The new two-crossed flag of King James had, in 1606, been authorized to be used by the ships of all his subjects, by the merchantmen as well as on the men-of-war. This order caused many heart-burnings among the admirals of the Royal Navy, and especially to the Admiral of the Narrow Seas, whose particular right it was to fly His Majesty's ensign on these much-frequented waters, and whose principal prerogative it was to see that the ships of other nations observed the courtesies and accorded the privileges due to the British flag in its claim to the Sovereignty of the Seas. Under this new arrangement other ships, as well as the ships of the Royal Navy, were carrying the King's Jack at the main, and the officers of the navy felt that their official prominence was thereby much diminished, for, as they said, how were foreigners to distinguish a merchantman from a man-of-war? Sir John Penington, Narrow Seas Admiral, in 1633, sent in his remonstrances, and pressed for the

"altering the Coullers, whereby His Majestie's own ships may be known from the subjectes."

It will be remembered that the ships of foreign nations were required, when meeting any of the Royal ships of the King of England, to dip their colours and topsails. This change the Admiral, therefore, considered,

"to bee very materiale and much for His Majestie's honour; and, beside, will free dispute with strangers; for when they omitt doing theyr respects to His Majestie's shippes till they be shott att, they alledge they did not know it to be ye King's shippe."

The Royal Navy kept up a constant agitation for the repeal of the order, until at length, in 1634, being the thirty-eighth year of the flag from its first establishment by James I., their claim was acceded to by Charles I., and a proclamation was duly issued:

"BY THE KING:

"A Proclamation appointing the flags as well for our Navie Royall as for the ships of our subjects of South and North Britaine.

"We taking into our Royal Consideration it is Meete for the honour of Oure Shipps in our Navie Royall and of such other shipps as are or shall be employed in Our immediate service that the same bee, by their flags distinguished from the shipps of any other of Our Subjects doe herebye straitly prohibite and forbid that none of our Subjects of any of our Nations and Kingdoms shall from henceforth presume to carry the Union Flagge in the maintoppe or other part of any of their shipps that is the St. George's Crosse and the St. Andrew's Crosse joyned together upon pain of Our High displeasure; but that the same Union Flagge be still reserved as an ornament proper for Our Owne Shipps and shipps in our immediate service and pay and none other. And likewise Our further will and pleasure is that all the other shipps of Our subjects of England or South Britaine bearing flags, shall from henceforth Carry the Red Crosse commonly called St. George his Crosse as of olde time hath been used; and also that all the other shipps of Our Subjects of Scotland or North Britaine shall from Henceforth carry the White Crosse commonly called St. Andrew's Crosse. Whereby the several shippes may be distinguished, and wee thereby better discerne the number and goodness of the same; Wherefore wee will and straitly command all Our Subjects foorthwith to be conformable and obedient to this Our Order, as they will answer the contrary at their perill.

"Given at our Court at Greenwich this 5th day of May in the tenth yeare of Oure Reigne of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. God Save the King."

Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, printer to the King's Most Excellent Majestie, and by the Assignee's of John Bill, 1634.

This proclamation of Charles I. made a very great change in the position of the "Union Flagge" of James, by restricting its use to one class of ships. That it had never been intended at that time to serve as a "national" flag is again clearly evidenced by the renewed declaration that it was the special signal of the Sovereign, to be used exclusively on the ships of the Royal Navy. Further, the merchant vessels owned by "subjects of any of our Nations and Kingdoms," which had thus lost the "additional" Jack, were ordered to continue to use, as of "olde time hath been used," their distinctive national flags. For the continued preservation of the peace, it was again required that each ship should display only the flag of the nation to which it belonged, namely, the St. George's crosse, or old English Jack, on English merchant ships, and St. Andrew's crosse, or Scotch Jack, on the Scotch merchant ships.

The position of the three flags at this time was thus clearly distinguished:

This first change in the position in the using of this first two-crossed Jack is shown in a drawing given of the "King's ships."

The battleship Sovereign of the Seas, which was built in 1637, was the glory of the fleet of Charles I., and proved herself, during her sixty years of active service, one of the best men-of-war of the time, and "so formidable to her enemies that none of the most daring among them would willingly lie by her side."[43]

17. The "Sovereign of the Seas," 1637.

(From a painting by Vandervelt.)

The drawing (17) here shown of this ship is copied from a contemporary painting by Vandervelt. At the stern is the Royal Standard of Charles I.; on the two masts ensigns with royal ciphers; and the two-crossed "Union Flagge," which from 1634 was to be the "ornament proper for our owne shipps," is flying on the "Jack staff" at the bow. It was the "King's Flag" calling for the obeisance of foreign vessels.

But another change was yet to come, and after fourteen more years had passed away another Jack was flying at the bow, and the Royal Standard of the King had disappeared from the stern of the gallant vessels. Premonitory symptoms of this impending change had been given even so early as January, 1645, when the headings of the official lists of the ships of the navy had been altered by order of Parliament, so that the ships were officially entered as "The Parliament's Ships," instead of being described, as previously, "His Majesty's Ships."[44]

In February, 1648, the Revolutionary Parliament of England abolished the office of King, and by this and the subsequent execution of King Charles they cancelled the allegiance of Scotland and dissolved the connection between the kingdoms. A change was made in the Jacks which were to be worn on the men-of-war. The Parliament did not consider the Stuart kingdom of Scotland to be a portion of their State, and ordered that its recognition should be removed from the flags then used on their ships. An order of the Council was therefore passed, February 23rd, 1648, signed by John Bradshaw, "in ye name of ye Counsell of State," which was communicated in a letter to the Commissioners of the Navy, directing the change and ordering that "the ships that are in the service of the State shall beare the Red Crosse only in a white flagg, quite through the flagg." Up to that time carvings of the royal arms had been carried on the stern of all royal ships, so the order further directed that these also should be altered, and that "upon the Sterne of the Shippes there shall be the Red Crosse in one Escotcheon and the Harpe in one other, being the Armes of England and Ireland, both Escotcheons joined according to the pattern herewith sent unto you."

18. Commonwealth Twenty-Shilling Piece.

The form of these escutcheons is well shown in the twenty-shilling piece (18) issued during the Commonwealth, and also on a Parliamentary flag (19) then in use which had on the fly the same two emblems. One of these flags is still preserved in the house of the Admiralty Superintendent at Chatham, the colour of the ground of the flag being red.[45]

Thus the two-crossed Union Jack of James ceased to be used and disappeared from the navy, as it already had from the merchantmen, and the single red cross Jack of England was restored to its position as the only Jack carried on the men-of-war of the State, or on any English ship sailing the seas.

The merchant vessels of the two nationalities continued to use their English and Scottish national Jacks as before, but the Scottish ships were especially warned that they must not carry either the King's arms or the red cross of St. George, and in case any of these Scottish ships should be met so doing, the State's colonel-admirals were ordered to "admonish them not to do it in future."

19. Commonwealth Boat Flag.

The position of the Jacks was now:

This position the English St. George Jack continued to hold on the ships of the State navy until 1660, when another change took place, and, at the "Restoration" of Charles II., the two-crossed "Union Flagge" returned, without any proclamation, to the places where it had been displayed before the change made by the Commonwealth Parliament.

On the Naseby (20) it will be noticed that the two-crossed Jack is flying at the bow and on the mizzen, instead of the single red cross flag ordered by Parliament. How this came about is told in the next chapter.

Here, then, ended the period during which the English Jack, having been restored as a single flag, had continued to be, from 1648 to 1660, the only Jack authorized to be used on the men-of-war.

After the return of the King his subjects evidently began, in their enthusiasm, to make such indiscriminate use of this "King's Jack" instead of the single St. George Jack that they needed, a few years afterwards, to be reminded of the special instructions respecting the flag which had been given in the previous reign. In consequence of this, in 1663, another proclamation was issued, under Charles II., from which the following extract is made:

"A proclamation for the regulating the colours to be worn on merchant ships.—Charles R.

"Whereas by ancient usage no merchants' ships ought to bear the Jack, which is for distinction appointed for His Majesty's ships:

"His Majesty strictly charges and commands all his subjects, that from henceforth they do not presume to wear His Majesty's Jack, commonly called the Union Jack, on any of their ships or vessels, without particular warrant for their so doing from His Majesty, or the Lord High Admiral of England. And His Majesty doth further command all his loving subjects without such warrant they presume not to wear on board their ships or vessels any Jacks made in imitation of His Majesty's, or any other flags, Jacks or ensigns whatsoever, than those usually heretofore worn on merchants' ships, viz., the flag and Jack white, with a red cross, commonly called St. George's cross, passing quite through the same, and the Ensign red with the like cross in a canton white at the upper corner thereof next to the staff."

The distinctive order of the flags was this time arranged to be:

From the time of this proclamation of Charles II. the Jack of King James regained its officially authorized position, but only as a single flag, and even then was ordered to be used only on the royal men-of-war. The merchant ships, however, began again so frequently to fly this Jack instead of their single-cross Jacks, that in the reign of William III., and again in the reign of Queen Anne (prior to the creation of her own two-crossed Jack), it was found necessary to issue special proclamations reiterating the official restriction of this two-crossed Jack of James to the ships of the Royal Navy, and forbidding any other ships to use it.

Although the merchantmen were not always using the single St. George Jack, which had been restored to them, and it had given way in the Royal Navy to the two-crossed Jack, yet it had always continued to be used in the Ensign Red referred to in the proclamation. The creation of this Ensign Flag, in 1648, is told in the next chapter, and in this form the restoration of the English Jack was extended for a further period to 1707, and reserved for a special further honour in later times.

In the British Navy of the present day the St. George Jack has become, and is ordered to be, the distinctive flag of an Admiral. According to the mast upon which it is raised his rank is indicated, and the ship on which it is carried is termed the "Flag Ship." These flags are displayed as follows:

Thus has the English Jack been once more restored, and being the signal of command in the British Navy, it is a continuing memorial of the prowess of the seamen of England, whose ships so early won the sea command for the united empire.

[CHAPTER IX.]

THE EVOLUTION OF THE RED ENSIGN.

The history of the Jacks as single flags having been traced through these periods, we may revert to the changes brought about by their being made part of a larger flag, and note how the exalted position at the stern of the ships was transferred to a new flag, a National Ensign, in the upper corner of which the English Jack was placed alone, when this flag was first created.

Under James I. and Charles I., as also under the previous sovereigns of England, the flag flown at the stern of the men-of-war had been the Royal Standard of the Sovereign, of which an example is given in the drawing of the Sovereign of the Seas (17).

The Royal Standard bearing upon it then, as it does now, the armorial bearings or "arms" of the Sovereign, was the banner of the King, and, as then placed at the stern of the ships, signified his direct management and control of the royal fleet.

Before the close of the reign of Charles I. the money control of the Royal Navy had been jealously assumed by Parliament, and the ships had been enrolled as "the Parliament ships." With the advent of the Commonwealth the ships of the navy were no longer the ships of the King, but became the ships of the State.

PLATE IV

It was to take the place of the King's Standard at the stern that the Commonwealth Parliament created a flag, called the Commonwealth Ensign (Pl. [IV.], fig. 1), to be carried on their men-of-war. This was a red flag, having in the fly a yellow Irish harp, and in the upper corner next the staff the St. George cross upon a white ground. Ireland had early been overrun by the Commonwealth armies, so her emblem was included in the flag, but Scotland had warmly espoused the cause of the Stuarts, and was, therefore, not recognized.

Cromwell, after he had been raised to the position of Protector, and had dragooned Scotland into submission, put out, in 1658, another flag as the "Great Union," or banner of the Commonwealth (Pl. [IV.] , fig. 2), in which the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew were shown for England and Scotland, and the harp, on a blue ground, for Ireland; but they were each placed in separate quarters of the flag, instead of being joined together in one union, and on a black shield in the centre he caused to be displayed a lion rampant, as representing his own coat-of-arms and himself.

This "Great Union" of Cromwell does not appear to have entered into much use, although it certainly was displayed at his funeral.

The fleets of the navy were then flying ensigns of three different colours—red, blue and white—according to the rank of the admirals who were in command, red being the colour of the admirals of highest rank and the typical colour of England.[46]

Contemporary paintings also show that red, blue and white ensigns were in use under the Commonwealth, with a single harp in the fly, and a Dutch medal, struck to commemorate the death of Admiral Tromp, also shows the same design of flag.

The "Commonwealth Ensign," now having the Irish harp inserted in the flag, was the official flag flown at the stern of the ships of the States Navy during the period of the Commonwealth.

The rule of the Commonwealth party having, shortly after the death of Cromwell, come to its sudden termination, the Royalist supporters of the absent King did not take time or wait for any formal proclamation authorizing a change in flags which had come into existence under the order of the Commonwealth Council.

Pepys tells in his "Diary" of how this change was begun. Being "Clerk of the Acts of the Navy," he had been deputed to read the proclamation of Parliament declaring the restoration of the King to the crews on board those ships of the Navy which had been appointed to cross over to The Hague and bring Charles II. to England.

Under the Commonwealth successful generals and officers on land had been appointed to commands as admirals and officers in the navy, and the military titles were still retained, the official title of the officers in highest command in the navy of the Commonwealth being "Admirals and Generals at Sea."

While lying at anchor in the Downs, waiting for the high officials who were to accompany the fleet, Pepys records how the "General of the fleet" went from ship to ship in a small boat, telling them to "alter their Arms and flagges."

20. The "Naseby." Charles II.

(From a painting by Vandervelt.)

On 13th May, 1660, being on board the London, one of the ships of this squadron, he makes the following entries of his day's doings, and tells of the making of these changes: "To their quarterdeck, at which the taylers and painters were at work, cutting out some pieces of yellow cloth in the fashion of a crown and 'C.R.' to be put up instead of the State's arms." He also records that meetings of the officers were held, and that he had attended "in the afternoon a council of war only to acquaint them that the harp must be taken out of all their flags, it being very offensive to the King."

When, therefore, the harp had been removed from their flags, there remained the simple "Ensign Red," having the St. George cross in the upper white canton.

The Naseby (20)—afterwards re-named the Royal Charles—was one of the ships of the squadron which crossed to The Hague, and the actual ship on which Charles II. came over to England. The drawing shows the Ensign Red flying at the stern. There had not been sufficient opportunity for the obtaining of new flags, and, therefore, those which they had in use were altered on board the ships, as Pepys has told, and this flag is a Commonwealth "Ensign Red," with the Irish harp cut out (Pl. [IV.], fig. 3).

A very great deal of dependence cannot, as a rule, be placed on the form of the flags introduced into their pictures by artists even of the highest rank. When painting flags more attention is frequently given by them to the colour effect desired to be produced than to the accurate drawing of the details.

Some instances of unworthy errors in the drawing of national flags may be mentioned. In a painting by Leutze, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, a representation is shown of "Washington crossing the Delaware, on December 25th, 1776." In this a flag with the stars and stripes is prominently shown, although no such flag had any existence until a year and a half afterwards,[47] an error which has been perpetuated by a copy of this painting on a series of the national bank-notes issued by the United States Government. In the Capitol of the United States at Washington there is a picture of the "Battle of Lake Erie," fought in 1814, in which the flag on Commodore Perry's boat has only thirteen stars and thirteen stripes, although the United States ensign had been changed twenty years before, in 1794, to have fifteen stars and fifteen stripes. On the walls of the Commons Corridor in the British Houses of Parliament at Westminster is a fresco representing the landing of Charles II., in 1660, in which the Union Jack is depicted as having three crosses, the red cross of St. Patrick being included, although it was not entered in the flag until 1801, or 140 years afterwards.

In each of these instances the artist was painting from his imagination, but Vandervelt, who painted the picture from which our illustration of the Naseby is taken, was himself present on the occasion he recorded, and, seeing that he was the most celebrated marine artist of his day, the details of the flags can be taken to be correct.

The subsequent proclamation of Charles II., in 1663 (page 89), shows that this flag not only continued to be used on the royal ships, but that also all the merchant ships had adopted it and were flying the "Ensign Red" at the stern in the same way as on the Naseby, and thus it was that this flag, having become established by usage as the national ensign, was then confirmed in its position by the proclamation of the King.

21. Medal of Charles II., 1665.

Further confirmation of its use is given by the medals issued in 1665 by Charles II., which he granted to his followers in recognition of service. One of these is given in fig. 21. On the reverse is a ship in full sail. On the flag at the mainmast head are the letters "C.R.," being the abbreviation of CAROLUS REX, and intended to indicate that the flag was the Royal Standard; at the bow the two-crossed Jack, and at the stern the Red Ensign with the St. George Jack in the upper corner.

The place of distinction at the stern had been occupied, as under Charles I., by the Royal Standard of the reigning kings. To this position the Commonwealth ensign had been installed as being the ensign of the State, and then by the unpremeditated transition at the "Restoration" the Red Ensign succeeded to the post of honour as the ensign of the nation.

The story of this flag again exemplifies its harmony with the peculiar genius of the British constitution, for it attained to its position, not by a single verbal enactment, but by force of unwritten usage, and its gradual acceptance by the will of the people, after which it was confirmed by the Act of the sovereign.

It will also be noted in the drawing of the Naseby, and on the medal, that the Royal Standard of Charles II. is shown flying at the main. This was the position at which it had, under previous sovereigns, been displayed by the Lord High Admiral of the Navy to indicate his rank. The Earl of Warwick, who was Lord High Admiral under Charles I., continued to fly it at the main even after the death of the King; but when Warwick was dismissed from his post by the Commonwealth, the Royal Standard was no longer used as the distinction flag of the Royal High Admiral. When the Commonwealth ended and a new King returned, it was again raised to the place where it had been displayed by the last Royalist admiral.

At the present day the Royal Standard, being the personal flag of the Sovereign, is only shown to indicate the royal presence or that of some member of the Royal Family, or raised in recognition of some special royal day. On shipboard it is raised on the mainmast immediately the royal personages come alongside, and is lowered the moment that they leave, the national ensign being still displayed at the stern.

It was the St. George cross which had been placed in the upper corner of the Commonwealth ensign; from here it had passed into the Ensign Red of Charles II., thereafter borne at the stern on both merchantmen and men-of-war. In the paramount ensign of the nation the single-cross English Jack was thus carried from 1648 to 1707, when its place in the national ensign was taken for the first time by a two-crossed Jack, and then only by the first real Union Jack, the Jack of Queen Anne.

In all the series of changes mentioned in this and the previous chapter direct evidence is given that the "commonly called Union Jack" of James was only an "additional" flag; that having been considered the "King's Jack," it had not officially displaced the local national Jacks, and that, although it had superseded them as a single flag on the Royal Navy, it had never been introduced into the paramount and national ensign of the nation.

Such, then, was the origin and evolution of the Ensign Red, the national ensign of the British people, and which formed, with the changes made in the Jack in the subsequent reigns of Queen Anne and George III., the basis of the present "Red Ensign" of the British Empire.

Our national ensign tells us how from its very origin it signified the progress of constitutional rule. The Royal Standard of Charles I. at the stern was the expression of absolute rule by the King without the control of Parliament; the Commonwealth Ensign told of the absolute rule of Parliament without the King; the Ensign Red at the stern recorded the coming of constitutional government by both King and Parliament; and so our Red Ensign still tells the story of British constitutional rule by sovereign and people, represented in their united power by this Union Ensign flying at the stern of all British ships and over all the British lands which bear it united allegiance.

[CHAPTER X.]

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEAS.

THE FIGHT FOR THE FLAG.

At the close of the first historic period of the St. George Jack we saw it reigning supreme upon the seas around the shores of England. The great Armada had, in 1588, been met and shattered, and its squadrons so relentlessly pursued around the British Isles that but a remnant remained to struggle back to Spain and tell the story of their defeat.

After such a victory as this the red cross flag of the "Navie Royall" sailed the Narrow Seas with more assurance than ever, claiming and receiving the obeisance of all vessels that were passing by. The ancient policy of Alfred and of John had been as much esteemed during this Elizabethan period, and its principles adhered to as earnestly and for the same reason as in the earliest days; but the increase of merchant shipping and the rise of the business fleets of England now gave a new reason for its being maintained beyond the old one of self-defence. With the advent of long-distance voyages riches were now to be found beyond the confines of the Narrow Seas. Sir Walter Raleigh stated the new reason with a terseness which four centuries of phrase-making has not since excelled. Said he: "Whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself."

The sovereignty of the seas had in this way developed a trade value; yet, whatever may have been the real and underlying causes, the contests for the supremacy which for the next hundred years kept simmering between the nations, bursting out at times into blasts of open war, arose ostensibly from disputes between the guardians of the rival fleets regarding the honourable precedence to be accorded to their respective flags.

The sea-rovers of Elizabeth had developed into something very like "gentleman-buccaneers." They ranged the oceans, preying upon the Spanish and Portuguese ships wherever they were to be found, and returned in joyousness, bringing home their booty. The maritime eagerness of the people was whetted by these prizes, and it is said that even the Queen herself was not averse to accepting from her good subjects, Drake and Hawkins, a share of the proceeds of their prowess. The reign of the Jack of James I. had scarce begun when a neighbouring maritime rival arose to assume formidable proportions. Nurtured in the hardy school of their fishing fleets, and practised in distant voyages by traffic with their possessions in the East Indies, the Dutch merchantmen not only copied the English methods of preying abroad on the ships of other nations, but also began to employ themselves actively in carrying the water-borne business of their own merchants, and next, which was an intrusion much more objectionable, to enter into competition with the English ships in carrying the merchandise for the other nations of Europe. Thus the passage of the Dutch fleets along the coasts of Europe greatly increased. As soon as the Spanish war was over, Sir William Monson, the Admiral of the Narrow Seas, demanded that the ships of all other nations should, as of old, lower their flags in the presence of his own, "a courtesy which could not," he announced, "be challenged by right, but now that the war was ended, His Majesty James I. demanded the full recognition of such rights and duties as belonged to his predecessors."[48]

These old rights the Admiral and his officers accordingly proceeded to enforce.

The spirit of the British sailors under the King's new two-crossed Jack was still the same as under the English Jack, and one is reminded of the old pride in the flag by an instance which is narrated as having occurred under James I. One of the ministers of Henry IV. of France had embarked at Calais to cross to England in a French ship wearing the French flag at the main. The commander of the English despatch boat, which had been sent to escort him, on meeting him in the channel, ordered the French ship to lower her flag. "The Duke of Sully, considering that his quality freed him from such an affront, boldly refused, but this refusal was followed by his receiving three cannon shots which pierced his ships. Might forced him to yield what right forbade, and for all the complaints he made he could get no better reply from the English captain than this: 'That just as his duty obliged him to honour the ambassador's rank, so it also obliged him to exact the honour due to the flag of his master as Sovereign of the Seas.'"[49]

The "rufflings" increased in frequency, and the contest went merrily on, as the Dutch, increasing in enterprise and volume of shipping, chafed still more under the domination of the English admirals. In this restlessness they were encouraged by the differences which were raging between King Charles I. and his Parliament. The latter thwarted the King's efforts at sea and refused to contribute to the levy of "ship-money," declaring it to be an "insufferable tax"; while he, without their concurrence, was attempting to strengthen the navy, which he had created to assert the King of England's right to the sovereignty of the seas and for the protection of his shores, by the maintenance of the old Alfred policy. The King's sailors felt keenly the increasing insolence of the passing Dutch ships, as wrote one old salt:

"What affront can be greater, or what can make a man valianter, than a dishonour done to prince and country, especially by a people that was wont to know no more than how to catch, pickle, and feed fish."[50]

Notwithstanding the Parliament's objections, an English navy was at one time collected of sufficient strength that, when the Dutch and French fleets joined together in 1635 with the avowed intention of contesting the command of the sea, its simply sailing out to meet them overawed their forces, as reports Monson:

"It is to be observed that the greatest threateners are the least fighters; and so it fared with them; for they no sooner heard of our readiness to find them, but they plucked in their horns and quitted our coast, never more repairing to it."

The King's opponents averred that the quarrels with the Dutch over the honour due to the flag were fomented only for the purpose of forming an excuse for extorting more money by the objectionable ship-money, whose proceeds, they alleged, were expended for very different purposes than the maintenance of the navy. So the people resisted, while the King persisted. Later on, during the Civil War, English ships, manned by Royalist supporters of the King, were engaged in fighting against English ships manned by supporters of the Parliament, and each party was preying upon the merchant adherents of the other. Meantime, the Dutch maritime power continued to grow. The struggle between the Parliament and the King resulted in the defeat and execution of Charles, and the weakening of the fleet by these dissensions brought on the humiliation of the English flag during the first Dutch war.

Under Cromwell, in 1648, the St. George cross had been restored.

The Council of State took heart, and showed by their actions that once more the homage due the national flag was held by them in as great esteem as it had been by the King and his party in the royal days. The orders to their naval commanders were explicit:

"And, whereas, the dominion of these seas has, time out of mind, undoubtedly belonged to this nation, and the ships of all other nations, in acknowledgment of that dominion, have used to take down their flags upon sight of the Admiral of England, and not to bear it in his presence, you are, as much as in you lies, to endeavour to preserve the dominion of the sea, and to cause the ships of all other nations to strike their flags and not to bear them up in your presence, and to compel such as are refractory therein by seizing their ships and sending them to be punished, according to the Laws of the Sea, unless they yield obedience and make such repair as you approve."[51]

The Commonwealth of England, in self-defence of their shipping, and as a direct blow against the Dutch, enacted the celebrated Navigation Act of 1651, directing that all goods imported into the Kingdom of Britain, or into her colonies, must be carried either in English ships or in those of the country whence the cargo was obtained.

The Dutch and English navies sailed the seas watching the movements of each other's flags, and minding the welfare of their merchant marine. Bickerings were frequent, but in May, 1652, off Dover, Tromp brought the right to salute to a crisis. The nations were then at peace, when the Dutch fleet bore down in strength upon the English without lowering their colours. As soon as Tromp was within musket-shot the English Admiral gave orders to fire at his flag. At the third shot Tromp answered by a broadside. In such way, through an episode regarding a flag, the first Dutch War began.[52] Although the Parliament had become alive to the value of a navy, yet the unpreparedness of the previous years now told its tale, for when the season of 1652 had closed, the Dutch had swept the English flag from the Narrow Seas, and Tromp is traditionally reported to have triumphantly carried a broom at his masthead as a sign of his complete success.

22. Whip-lash Pennant, British Navy.

Tromp's glory was of but short duration, for the Roundhead dragoon, Blake, nicknamed "The cavalryman at sea," soon clipped his wings. In return for the compliment of the previous year, Blake, after his victory, ran up a pennant on his mast, long and narrow like a whiplash, to show that he had in his turn driven the Dutchman off the seas; and the whiplash masthead pennants, with the St. George cross in the white ground at the head (22), borne on all His Majesty's ships in commission, serve as reminders of the story of this exploit to the present day.[53]

Peace followed in 1654. In this treaty of peace the Dutch agreed that:

"The ships of the Dutch—as well in ships of war as others—meeting any of the ships of war of the English Commonwealth in the British Seas, shall strike their flags and lower their topsail in such manner as hath ever been at any time heretofore practised under any form of government."

Thus had the old sea supremacy of the nation of England, claimed by King John, been again acknowledged; but on this occasion it was for the first time accorded to England by the terms of a formal treaty.

It was the red cross Jack of St. George, introduced by Richard I., and raised as his "Royal Flag" by King John, which had in previous times received the honour of the "Sovereign Lordship of the seas." We have seen how for a while its place had been shared by the additional two-crossed Jack of James: but now, by the incident of the temporary dissolution with Scotland under the Commonwealth, the English Jack was once more reigning in sole possession of the flag-staff, to receive by the terms of this treaty the renewal of that proud homage which its single red cross had received four centuries before. It was a happy coincidence which the flag of the seafaring Englishman most fully deserved.

Afterwards when the Jack of Queen Anne had taken its place in the Union Ensign, the same claim of supremacy was upheld. Under George III. the instructions issued to the British navy for salutes to be given and received stated:

"When any of His Majesty's ships shall meet with any ship belonging to any Foreign Prince or State within His Majesty's seas (which extend to Cape Finisterre), it is expected that the said Foreign ships do strike their topsail, and take in their flag in acknowledgment of His Majesty's Sovereignty in those seas."[54]

This sovereignty so valiantly for so many centuries maintained was again gloriously achieved when Nelson at Trafalgar swept the combined forces of the French and Spanish navies from the seas, and made his nation the dominant power on the oceans—a dominance since maintained, not by conflict in attack, but by power and preparation for defence, in which the parent kingdom is now being joined by the daughter dominions in the outer Empire for maintaining inviolate the supremacy of the seas.

[CHAPTER XI.]

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEAS.

THE FIGHT FOR THE TRADE.

Notwithstanding the check which they had received in their career, the marine power—both naval and merchant—of the Dutch kept on increasing. The hostilities against Spain, conducted under Cromwell, had transferred the Spanish carrying trade to the Dutch from the English ships, which had previously enjoyed it. The Dutch had also challenged the English merchantman in his own carrying trade, as well as becoming general carriers for all Europe; so much so that they were termed "The wagoners of all the seas."

It was the contest for the money value of the "command" of the seas which was really being waged, and the commerce of distant continents was the prize which would fall to the victor's share. Vessels of the Dutch and other nations were ordered to heave to, or were stopped by a shot across their bows, not only to compel observance of the supremacy of the flag, but also for opportunity to search their holds for the goods which the searchers might consider should have been carried in English ships.

The Dutch had agreed to acknowledge the English flag in the British seas, but the English claimed it should be saluted on all. In 1663, De Ruyter and Admiral Lawson had almost come to cannon shots in the Mediterranean over salutes claimed for the flag, and recriminations and searchings had extended to the waters of the far East Indies, where the Dutch, who had taken the Cape of Good Hope from the Portuguese, were competing with the English ships for the merchant trade.

Soon, under Charles II., another Dutch war (1665-67) blazed out, during which De Ruyter sailed up the Thames to Gravesend and destroyed the ships at Chatham and in the Medway, and London was for the first time startled by the sound of an enemy's guns. Again the success was but temporary, for at the close of the war New Amsterdam in America, and with it the command of the Hudson River, was ceded to the English. The name of the new territory then obtained was changed to New York, in honour of the Duke of York, the King's brother, which English and royal name it still retains, although now forming the principal maritime city of the Republic of the United States. With the booty came, in the articles of peace, the old-time ascription of sovereignty to the British flag. It was again agreed by one of the articles of the treaty:

"That the ships and vessels of the so United Provinces, as well men-of-war as others, meeting any man-of-war of the said King of Great Britain in the British seas, shall strike their flag and lore the topsail in such manner as the same hath been formerly observed in any times whatsoever."[55]

But the rivalry was too intense to continue much longer without coming to a definite climax. The "command" foreseen by Raleigh was at stake. Both nations had the maritime instinct, and both the genius of colonizing power, so that one or the other of them must give place and leave to the survivor the supreme possession of all that this command implied.

Formal negotiations between the governments had been rife, but the vital test was the supremacy due to the flag. An English royal yacht was ordered to sail through the Dutch men-of-war in the channel and to fire on them if they did not strike their flags. An ultimatum was sent summoning Holland to acknowledge the right of the English crown to the sovereignty of the British seas and to order its fleets to lower their flags to the smallest English man-of-war.[56]

Thus the third and final war came on in 1672 and continued until 1674.

The plain red fighting flag of the English navy of the day was flying at the fore on the men-of-war as the signal to "engage the enemy," and the ensign red was at the stern of both men-of-war and merchantmen as the national ensign. War immediately commenced, and while the Royal Navy was battling with its guns, the merchant navy of England was cutting into the carrying trade of the Dutch, so much so that at its close the British merchant ships had captured the greater part of the foreign business of the enemy, and by thus exhausting their earnings, and reducing the fighting resources of the Dutch, contributed to the final victory almost equally with the exploits of the men-of-war.

The contest, though short, was very sharp. The strife had been for the merchant carrying trade of the world, and when it was won, whole colonies were transferred with it to the victorious English.

During the interval which had followed since the previous war the English had returned to the Dutch their newly-acquired possession of New York in exchange for the Dutch possessions in Guiana, the boundaries of whose territories then transferred formed the subject of the Venezuela excitement of 1896; but now they took both these countries back, while the Island of St. Helena, which, in the beginning of the war had been captured by the Dutch by an expedition sent from their colony at the Cape of Good Hope, was again recovered to the British flag. These possessions formed only a portion of the victor's spoil. Above all of these and other great money results, the old sea spirit again asserted itself, and setting into inferior position the additions to the realm, or the compensations exacted for the expenses of the war, the final treaty declares among its first clauses the lordly renewal of the centuries-old right of the respect and salute due to the nation's flag:

"In due acknowledgment on their part of the King of Great Britain's right to have his flag respected in the seas hereafter mentioned, shall and do declare and agree, that whatever ship or vessels belonging to the said United Provinces, whether vessels of war or others, or whether single or in fleets, shall meet in any of the seas from Cape Finisterre to the middle point of the land Van Staten, in Norway, with any ships or vessels belonging to His Majesty of Great Britain, whether these ships be single or in great number, if they carry His Majesty's of Great Britain flag or Jack, the aforesaid Dutch vessels or ships shall strike their flag and lower their topsail in the same manner and with as much respect as hath at any time, or in any place, been formerly practised towards any ships of His Majesty of Great Britain or his predecessors, by any ships of the States General or their predecessors."[57]

The "Jack" of His Majesty Charles II., which was the sign of His Majesty's ships, was the two-crossed "additional" Jack of his father, which had been restored to the navy at the Restoration, and as shown on the Naseby (20).

This Jack was flying at the bow and on the mizzen of the ships of war, and at the stern was the sign of nationality, the "ensign red" with the St. George cross.

The ensign red which the ships of that royal navy bore when they thus won the final supremacy of the sea from the navy of Holland, was the flag worn also by the British merchantmen of the time, and on them witnessed the obtaining of that other command, then won from the Dutch, "the command of the trade, which is the command of the riches of the world." To this victory the merchant mariner, by his seamanship and energy, had done his full share, and had won his right to wear it as his own. Worthily, therefore, at this present day do the merchant ships of Britain wear the red ensign on every sea, in every clime, in rightful acknowledgment of the part their predecessors played in the gaining of the supremacy of the sea.

This supremacy, and still more the spirit of sea supremacy, has ever remained dominant in the souls of British seamen.

When in March, 1889, the harbour of Apia, in Samoa, was devastated by a terrific cyclone, and all the ships of other nations dragged their anchors and were driven ashore, it was with this native spirit that the British sailors slipped their cables and set out for their ocean home on the open sea. As the British man-of-war breasted the hurricane and battled through the breakers at the harbour mouth, the American sailors on their flagship Rodney, sinking with fires extinguished[58] inside the bar, cheered her as she passed, a cheer which rang round the world, and the bold Calliope, with her British ensign above her, and her "hearts of oak" within, won her way to safety far out in the wildest storm.

With such widespread venture in her people, such spirit in her ships and record in her flag, no wonder is it that the British Navy and the British merchant marine exceed in number and in power those of any other nation on the globe. Well, therefore, with lusty throats and cheerful hearts, Britannia's children sing:

"Rule, Britannia; Britannia rules the waves!"

[CHAPTER XII.]

THE UNION JACK OF QUEEN ANNE, 1707.

THE SECOND UNION JACK.

The story of the flag now brings us to the creation of the second two-crossed Jack, being the first real "Union Jack" (23).

23. Union Jack of Queen Anne, 1707.

In the year 1707, being the sixth year of the reign of Queen Anne, the Parliaments of England and Scotland were at length brought into Union in one Parliament. Up to this time there had not been one distinctive "Union Jack" to represent both the kingdoms—no one flag taking the place of the separate national Jacks of St. George and St. Andrew, which the English and Scotch subjects of the Sovereign had each been instructed and continued to use, according to their nationality.

In Acts of Parliament which had been passed in the Parliaments of England and Scotland, prior to their ceasing to act and becoming merged in the one "Union Parliament of Great Britain," authority had been given to the Queen to create a flag, in which the two national flags, the "Crosse of St. George" and the "Crosse of St. Andrew," should be joined together to form a Union Flag.

PLATE V

The Queen accordingly called her councillors together, and a Committee of the Lords of the Privy Council was appointed "to consider of several matters in Execution of the Act lately pass'd for the uniting of the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland."

Instructions were given by this Committee to the Right Honourable the Earl of Bindon, Deputy Earl Marshal of England,

"to give Direction to the Kings of Arms and ye Heralds to consider of the Alterations to be made in the Ensigns Armorial and the Conjoyning the Crosses of St. George and St. Andrew to be used in all Flags, Banners, Standards and Ensigns at Sea and Land, and that they lay before the Committee Drafts of the present Flags of England and of Scotland, and of such alterations as they propose for the Flags of the United Kingdom."[59]

These directions were carried out and various designs prepared by the Heralds and the Committee were thereafter presented for final adjudication and authority at a meeting of the Privy Council, as recorded in the Minutes:

"At the Court at Kensington, the 17 day of April, 1707.
"Present:
"The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty in Council:

"Whereas upon a Report from the Lords of Her Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council appointed to consider of divers matters in execution of the late Act for Uniting the Two Kingdoms, who were attended by the Kings of Arms and Heralds with divers Drafts proposed by them relating to the Ensigns Armorial for the United Kingdom and for adjoining the Crosses of St. George and St. Andrew pursuant to the said Act, Her Majesty is pleased to approve of the following particulars, viz.:

"That the Draft marked A be made use of for the manner of bearing Arms for the said United Kingdom.

* * * * * * * *

"That the Flaggs be according to the Draft marked C, wherein the Crosses of St. George and St. Andrew are Conjoyned."[60]

Copies of the minute and of the drafts were transmitted under seal to the College of Arms, London. A careful copy of the drawing of Draft C, as attested by a certificate of the York Herald, is given (fig. 24).

Formal and important promulgation of the Orders and Flags was ordered by another paragraph of this same minute of April:

"And Her Majesty is pleased to Order, That these Minutes be put into the Hands of Her Majesty's Principal Secretarys of State, who are to Receive Her Majesty's Pleasure thereupon, And to signify the same within the United Kingdom of great Britain and in Ireland, Her Majesty's Plantations in America, the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey and all other Her Majesty's Dominions."[61]

24. Draft "C," Union Jack, 1707.

This Draft C, so prepared by the Committee and Heralds, and selected and approved by Her Majesty the Queen and Her Privy Council, was duly transmitted to be the form of the new "Flagg," which was to be used on all "Flags and Ensigns at sea and on land," and not only by Her Majesty's subjects in the Home Kingdoms, but in all the Islands and Dominions beyond the seas.

Thus was formed the "Union Jack" of Queen Anne, which, taking the place of the Jack of James I., "commonly called the Union Jack," was the second two-crossed Jack, and the first fully authorized "Union Jack."

In the July following, the Queen issued a proclamation regarding "Our Jack" and the "Ensign" of the now completely United Kingdom, and defining more particularly how these flags were to be used at sea:

Royal Arms.

Three lions for England, red lion for Scotland, harp for Ireland, three fleurs-de-lis for France, and the motto, "Semper Eadem."

"BY THE QUEEN.

"A Proclamation—Declaring what ensign or colours shall be worn at sea in merchant ships or vessels belonging to any of Her Majesty's subjects of Great Britain and the Dominions thereunto belonging.—Anne R.

"Whereas, by the first article of the Treaty of Union, as the same hath been ratified and approved by several Acts of Parliament, the one made in our Parliament of England, and the other in our Parliament of Scotland, it was provided and agreed that the ensigns armorial of our Kingdom of Great Britain be such as we should appoint, and the crosses of Saint George and Saint Andrew conjoyned in such manners as we should think fit, and used in all flags, banners, standards and ensigns both at sea and land; we have, therefore, thought fit, by and with the advice of our Privy Council, to order and appoint the ensign described on the side or margent hereof, to be worn on board all ships or vessels belonging to any of our subjects whatsoever; and to issue this, our Royal Proclamation, to notifie the same to all our loving subjects, hereby strictly charging and commanding the masters of all merchant ships and vessels belonging to our subjects, whether employed in our service or otherwise, and all other persons whom it may concern, to wear the said ensign on board the ships or vessels."

After creating the Ensign, which was to be used by all ships, warning was given, so that Her Majesty's ships might be the more easily distinguished, against the using of the single Jack, or of any of the distinctive flags of the Royal Navy, without permission.

"And whereas, divers of our subjects have presumed on board their ships to wear our flag, Jacks and pendants, which, according to ancient usage, have been appointed as a distinction for our ships, and have worn flags, Jacks and pendants in shape and mixture of colours so little different from ours as not without difficulty to be distinguished therefrom. We do, therefore, with the advice of our Privy Council, hereby strictly charge and command all our subjects whatsoever, that they do not presume to wear in any of their ships Our Jack, commonly called the 'Union Jack,' nor any pendants, nor any such colours as are usually worn by our ships without particular warrant for their so doing from us."

The proclamation then stated that no other ensign was to be used, and that it was to take the place of the ensign red up to that time used by merchant ships:

"And to hereby further command all our loving subjects that without such warrant as aforesaid they presume not to wear on board their ships any other ensign than the ensign described on the side or Margent hereof, which shall be worn instead of the ensign before this time usually worn on merchant ships.

"Given at our Court at Windsor, the 28th day of July, in the sixth year of our reign.

"God Save the Queen."

25. The Red Ensign in "The Margent," 1707.

Here, then, we have the establishment of a new flag in accordance with the intention of the Treaty of Union. In this flag the "crosses" of St. George and St. Andrew were conjoined; the new flag was called "Our Jack" (Pl. [V.], fig. 1), which in its simple form, as a single Jack, was not to be used afloat on any other ships than Her Majesty's Royal Navy without particular warrant. A notable change was now made in the Ensign. We have seen how, in 1660, the English St. George cross had remained alone in possession of the upper corner of the "ensign red." Although the St. George cross continued, as it still does, in the "command pennant" of all officers of the Royal Navy, its place in the Ensign was now taken by the new "Union Jack," in the form as shown "in the margent" (25).

The "Red Ensign," thus formed, was authorized to be worn thereafter on all ships, both merchantmen and those in Her Majesty's service; and, further, that no other Ensign was to be worn except this "Red Ensign," with the new Union Jack in the upper corner, which was to take the place of the separate national Jacks and of the "Ensign Red" previously used on the merchant ships of the subjects of the Sovereign.

Here, then, ceased the official authority on ships as national flags of the separate crosse-flags of St. George and St. Andrew, and began the reign of the first "Union Jack" of the United Kingdoms. Then, too, was first raised the British Union Ensign, the "meteor flag" of the realm, to be worn by all subjects of Britain's Queen, whether on land or on sea, at home or abroad, on merchant ships or on men-of-war, so that wherever the blood-red flag should fly the world would know the nation to which its bearers belonged. In this red ensign (Pl. [V.], fig. 2), the paramount flag of the nation, the new "Union Jack" was placed; a position which, although so long enjoyed by the "English Jack," had never been occupied by the "additional" Jack of James I., whose term was now brought to a close.

The proclamation and drawing of the ensign, as shown (25), are taken by photo reproduction from the upper corner of an original in the British Museum, London, and verified with the copy of the flag in the College of Arms.

A very noticeable difference will be seen to exist between "our" new Jack of Queen Anne, of 1707, and the "additional" Jack of James, of 1606, as usually given.

The white border surrounding the St. George cross has been enlarged, and is no longer a mere margin or "fimbriation," but has become a broad white border, distinctive in size and appearance.

In the King James I. flag the crosses were "joyned according to the forme made by our heralds";[62] in the Queen Anne flag they are to be "conjoyned in such manners as we should think fit",[63] in accordance with the request of the Parliaments of the two kingdoms. This time the designers of the "drafts," to whom the two then "present flags of England and of Scotland"[64] had been committed, were not thinking so much of heraldry as of making, as they were instructed, a union flag, and, while combining the two crosses, of making the two flags into one.

We have seen with what carefulness the combined Committee of the Privy Council and of the Heralds had proceeded, and when the new flagmakers thus broadened the white, they did it, it has been considered, for the purpose of representing in the Union flag a part of the white ground of the St. George Jack, which had previously been entirely effaced, but which by the broad white border was now given its place in the new "Union," as well as, and in company with, that of the blue ground of the St. Andrew flag.

26. Fort Niagara, 1759.

(Reproduced from an old print.)

A confirmation of this intention will be found in the annals of the next change in the Union Jack, which was made almost a century later. It is possible, too, that the views of the designers were affected by the relative proportions of some of the King James Jacks, which were in official use and will be referred to later.

It may have been that some of the Queen's advisers and designers were sailors, who had carried the red cross of St. George, and now that it was being withdrawn from the Ensign of the nation in favour of the newcomer, felt, like the admiral of old, that it was but due to its centuries of glorious service that evidence of the whole English Jack—its white ground as well as its red cross—should be displayed in the new national emblem.

There the broad white band appeared in this two-crossed Jack, and has ever since remained, showing the red cross and white ground of St. George's Jack, combined, with the white cross and blue ground of St. Andrew's Jack, into one "Union Jack," which was hereafter to be the "sole ensign" of British rule.

It was this two-crossed Union Jack of Queen Anne which was raised at Plassey, when Clive won India, and at Pondicherry and at Seringapatam. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland were early (1713) transferred to it from the fleur-de-lis, and Sir William Johnson raised it in Canada above the old Fort Niagara, on the shores of Lake Ontario[65] (26), when

"The last day came, and Bois Le Grand Beheld with misty eyes The flag of France run down the staff, And that of England rise."[66]

Under it Wolfe stormed Louisbourg, the key fortress of Cape Breton, and, following up his victory, climbed the Heights, and died victorious on the Plains of Abraham (27), when, in 1759, Quebec was gained and all Canada came under the realm of British law.

27. The Assault at Wolfe's Cove, Quebec, 1759.

(From an old print published in London, 1760.)

The youthful Nelson saw it fly aloft when he served as captain's coxswain on a British man-of-war searching for the North Pole, and twenty-five years later when in glorious action he won his title as Baron Nelson of the Nile.

The Cape Colony was first acquired, and the West Coast of Africa, New South Wales and Vancouver Island were all added under its display, showing how the mariners of Britain were carrying it far across the distant seas, more distant then than now, for those sea-dogs of the "sceptred isles," boldly raising their new Union Jack upon the mast, braved the unknown oceans, and sailed their ships wherever billows rolled or winds could waft them.

So it came that, as its "glory roll" so vividly tells, it was under this second Union Jack the colonial possessions which dot the world around were either occupied by doughty Britons or were wrested from the flags of other nations to form the foundation of that Greater Britain which, from these beginnings, has since grown up in all the regions beyond the seas.

[CHAPTER XIII.]

THE TWO-CROSSED JACK IN CANADA.

Although the Union Jack has been built up on the local Jacks of the three island kingdoms, its greatest glories have been won in expeditions sent far across the seas to other lands. The people of the parent isles have never needed to raise it as their signal in driving invaders from their own shores, and in this way it does not bear that added vitality to them which it bears to the resident Canadian, that of being associated with brave defence of home and native land. To the Englishman, Irishman or Scotsman, in his own island home, it is an emblem of foreign conquest; to the immigrant and to the Canadian-born it is much more, as being the patriot signal of his national defence.

After the events of 1759 and of 1760, when Levis at St. Foy nearly won back Quebec, and the cession of the rule of France in Canada had been agreed upon, Canada had settled down into the paths of peace; soldier and habitant vied in binding up one another's wounds, and evidencing all the pleasantries of reconciliation.[67]

A memorial, the like of which has never been known elsewhere, either in history or the world, has been erected in the square of "The Governor's Garden," at Quebec, to the two heroes, Montcalm and Wolfe, equal in valour, equal in fame. A united sentiment raised this single monument to their united memory, bearing upon it the noble inscription:

MORTEM, VIRTUS, COMMUNEMFAMAM, HISTORIAMONUMENTUM, POSTERITAS DEDIT.

"Valour gave them a common death, history a common fame, posterity a common monument."

As the glory of their champions was thus intertwined, so the patriotism of the old French occupants and of the newcomers to Canada began from this splendid example to blend more closely in fraternal union.

The Treaty of Paris, in 1763, confirmed the Union Jack in its position of being the successor to the fleur-de-lis of France and the three castles of Castile of Spain over all the territory on the continent of America, stretching from Labrador along the Atlantic coast southward to Florida, and inland westward as far as the waters of the Mississippi from their highest sources to its mouth on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.[68]

In pursuance of this treaty, King George III. issued his proclamation (October, 1763) creating four provinces and governments, named Quebec, East Florida, West Florida, and Granada, this last consisting of the islands of the West Indies. Of these four the Province of Quebec comprised the territory lying adjacent to the St. Lawrence River system, along its whole length to the head waters on the watersheds of the farthest inland lakes.

By this proclamation French Canada ceased to be a conquered country, and became a fully established colony of the British King. It was to be governed by a governor and an assembly, entitled to arrange its own taxation, have control of its own internal welfare and local government, and empowered to institute its own courts of law; but to every subject, new or old, of the King, there was reserved the right of appeal to the foot of the throne itself in the Privy Council of Great Britain, should any person think himself aggrieved by the decision of his own locally appointed courts.[69]

The French Canadian subject soon began to find for himself the beneficent character of British rule. He was no longer harried by an irresponsible governor nor a grasping "intendant" for the enrichment of a far-distant court, but was assisted in every way in the local development of his country. His personal property was assured, and he soon became sensible of the certainty of English law.

An Act of Parliament followed, formally and still further guaranteeing to the French-speaking subjects the quiet continuance of their most cherished customs.[70]

The Quebec Act of 1774 confirmed the habitant in the free exercise of his Roman Catholic religion, and restored to him his old French civil law (Code Civile), but provided that in all criminal matters the law of England, which had been found so satisfactory, was to remain in force.

Content with his lot, secure in his home, and sure that good faith would ever be kept with him and his descendants, the French Canadian proved loyal to the trust which was now confided to him.

After having been for sixteen years an English colony, Canada was invaded in 1775 by the forces of the thirteen older English colonies to the south, which, after a series of altercations and misunderstandings, due largely to their refusal in the past days to contribute toward the expense of the military forces which had been maintained on their frontiers "at England's cost to defend her American children against the French and their Indian allies",[71] had consorted together in revolution against their parent State. After entering Montreal, which had been abandoned to them, the Revolutionary forces concentrated around the walls of Quebec for an assault upon the citadel. Below were the rebels against the British crown; above, upon the King's bastion on Cape Diamond, flew the two-crossed Union Jack, and within the fortress, under Sir Guy Carleton, the friend and fellow-soldier of Wolfe, was a garrison of 1,800 men, one-third of whom were French Canadian militia, headed by Colonel Lecompte Dupré. The invaders from New York were, however, reckoning without their host. They had expected to find the French Canadians dissatisfied with their lot; but, instead, they found them standing side by side with their British friends, and joining with them in common defence of their native Canadian land.

The assault commenced on the night of December 31st, 1775. At the point of attack at Près-de-Ville, in lower town, the guard was under the command of Captain Chabot and Lieutenant Picard, of the French Canadian militia, and the guns were served by sailors from the British ships, with Sergeant Hugh McQuarters, of the Royal Artillery, in charge. The attack was boldly met. General Montgomery, the leader of the United States forces, was killed; General Arnold, his second in command, wounded, and the whole invading force was put to rout.

Thus were the historic heights and ramparts of old Quebec again crowned with a British victory, but this time with one in which the French Canadians were themselves the brave defenders of the Union Jack.

No wonder the French-speaking Canadian looks upon his British flag with pride, and, as one of his compatriots, Sir Adolphe Chapleau, the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec in 1897, has so well said, "is French in nationality, but British in patriotism"—for beneath the Union Jack he dwells secure in possession of his dearest rights, and under it has victoriously driven the United States invaders back each time they have ventured to attack his loved Canadian soil.

While such loyalty to the national flag was shown in Eastern Canada, so was it also displayed later on in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and in the country of Canada yet farther to the West.

The thirteen southern colonies had completed their revolution in 1783. Immediately thereafter the "coming of the Loyalists" had commenced to the districts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but was principally directed to the Western Province of Upper Canada, all three of these Provinces being now in the Dominion, or Union, of Canada.

These western lands were then uninhabited save by the native Indian tribes and a few white settlers who had been attracted to the districts by the chances of trapping for furs or of trading with the Indians.

The gallantry of the French-speaking Britons at Quebec, in 1775, had kept the Union Jack flying above Canadian soil, and to Canada's unbroken forests the English-speaking Loyalists therefore came, leaving the old colonies because they would have their loved flag once more float above them.

Never does history relate such devoted loyalty to a flag as was shown by this migration of the U. E. Loyalists[72]—men giving up homes, farms, companionship and wealth, and with their wives and little ones following a flag for conscience' sake into an undeveloped and almost unknown land.

"Right staunch and true to the ties of old, They sacrificed their all, And into the wilderness set out, Led on by duty's call. The aged were there with their snow-white hair, And their life-course nearly run, And the tender, laughing little ones Whose race had just begun."[73]

It was enough for them that the Union Jack was the flag of Canada; so they followed it to the far north. Here they lived out the balance of their days, and, dying, have been buried in the sacred soil beneath its folds. Certain it is that their descendants will ever prove true to their loyal faith, that no other realm shall possess their bones nor other nation's flag fly above their graves.

Such, then, was the esteem in which Canadians of both races held the two-crossed Union Jack. Before the century of 1800 had commenced, the French-speaking Loyalist of Quebec had laid down his life in its defence; and having, by this loyalty, preserved it to the country, the English-speaking Loyalist here sought a new home in the far-off forests of Canada, so that he and his loved ones might continue to live again beneath its sway.

Truly was this two-crossed Union Jack the flag of Canada and the Canadians, and as truly is its three-crossed successor, our present Union Jack, the native birthright of the sons of its defenders and the successors of those patriot pioneers.

[CHAPTER XIV.]

THE IRISH JACK.

The lineage of the Irish Jack is not so clearly defined as is that of the other Jacks. Although "Paddy" has always been so ready for a shindy that fighting has come to be considered his "natural diversion," he has never found himself particularly at home on the sea. It is on land that he has found play for his fierce delight in mingling where the fray is thickest. It is as a soldier that the Irishman has always excelled. Wellington, Wolseley and Roberts attest his power in command, and in many a forlorn hope the wild energy of the Irish blood in the ranks has scaled the breach and carried the stormers past the anxious moments of the onset, displaying that same "eager, fierce, impetuous valour" with which, in the charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava, the "Inniskillings went into the massive Russian column with a cheer."[74]

It may be that as Ireland was at no time distinguished as a maritime nation, and its local shipping not developed to any great extent, the display of her national Jack had not been so much in evidence among the sailors of the early days as were the Jacks of the two sister nations.

The banner of St. Patrick (28), which is the "Irish Jack," is a white flag, having on it a red cross of the same saltire or diagonal shape as St. Andrew's cross, the heraldic description being, "Argent, a saltire gules," red saltire cross on a white ground (Pl. [I.], fig. 3).

28. St. Patrick's Jack.

St. Patrick was the Christian apostle of the Irish, and thus became their traditional patron saint. The story of his life is that he was born in Scotland, at Kilpatrick, near Dunbarton on the Clyde, and being taken prisoner by pirates when a child, was carried into Ireland and sold there as a serf. Having acquired the native language, he escaped to the continent, and afterwards becoming a Christian and having been ordained to service in the Church, returned to Ireland for the purpose of converting the people. The British name said to have been given him in his youth was Succeath (valiant in war), a temperament which he certainly impressed upon the Irish. This name was afterwards, when he returned to Ireland, changed to Patricius, in evidence of his noble family descent, and to add importance to his mission.[75]

The legends of the saint date back to A.D. 411, when he is reported to have commenced his mission, and to have afterwards devoted his life to the increase of the well-being of the people and the spread of Christianity throughout Ireland. Tradition reports, although some do not put much faith in it, that the saint suffered martyrdom upon a cross of the shape of this red cross, and thus, when he became the patron saint of Ireland, it was held in recognition as his emblem, and for that reason was adopted as the Irish cross.

On the other hand, some people declare that the cross of the saltire shape is sacred only to St. Andrew.

29. Labarum of Constantine.

Another suggestion is that the shape of the saltire cross, both of the Irish and the Scotch, is derived from the Labarum (29), or Sacred Standard, which was raised by Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, as the imperial standard of his armies. On this he had placed a monogram composed of the first two letters, ΧΡ (ChR), of the Greek form of the sacred name of Christ (ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ), and the saltire cross is reputed to be the repetition of the Χ of the lower part of the Christian emblem.

The Labarum was the official standard of the Emperor of Rome, and upon it were displayed the "insignia" of the emperor of the day. Constantine, after his conversion to Christianity, had changed his previous insignia to the Christian emblem.

Should this latter suggestion of the origin of the cross of the saltire shape be accepted as the preferable one, this saltire cross has yet a most interesting and particular connection with the early history of Ireland.

The Roman Governor of Britain, under the Emperor Diocletian, when, in A.D. 301, the pacification of IBERNIA (Ireland) had been completed, was Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine.

30. Harp of Hibernia.

The goddess of the pagan islanders was the Goddess Hibernia, whose emblem was a harp, and this Hibernian Irish harp (30) Constantius had in testimony of his success adopted as the insignia for his standard.

After the resignation of Diocletian, Constantius Chlorus and Galerius were created joint emperors of Rome, and, dividing the empire between them, Galerius took the East and Constantius the West.

The death of Constantius occurred soon afterwards in England, at the city of York (Eboracum), and there he was succeeded as Emperor of Rome by his son Constantine.

Constantius had in some degree restrained the persecution of the Christians in Britain, which had raged under Diocletian, but it was now completely suppressed by the new emperor. Carrying with him his faith in Christianity, which he had learned in Britain, Constantine removed to the continent to engage in the contest for the command of the empire to which he had fallen heir, and in the battle of the Milvian Bridge, near Rome, in A.D. 312, he defeated the opposing eastern forces under Maxentius, and entered into undisputed possession of his position as sole emperor. It was just before this engagement that Constantine is reported to have seen a cross shining in the heavens at midday, having on it the inscription, ΕΝ ΤΟΥΤΩ ΝΙΚΑ ("In this conquer"—"In hoc signo vinces"), and, therefore, recognizing the Christian emblem, he adopted the Christian cross as his standard and placed the sacred monogram upon his Labarum. This victory resulted in the official recognition of the Christian religion, and the attaching to it of all the political power of the Emperor of Rome.

Constantius had lived, and Constantine the Great had been born and brought up, in the north of England, which, during the Roman occupation, had been converted to Christianity by missionaries from Scotland, whence St. Patrick afterwards also went to Ireland; and as it was to Constantine that the Christians owed their rescue from persecution, his insignia would, therefore, be heartily received. The early Christians, through this source, may have adopted the X cross, the lower part of Constantino's Christian monogram, as their emblem, and thus it had become associated in Ireland with the Christian labours of St. Patrick, their apostle and patron saint. In this "story of the Irish Jack," it is a notable transition that the harp emblem of Hibernia, carried by Constantius, and transmitted by him to his son, and by Constantine changed to the Christian Labarum, should in this diagonal cross of St. Patrick have been returned to become the emblem of Ireland.

Whichever may have been the source of its origin, the saltire cross, in its form of the red cross of St. Patrick, is by both lines of descent intimately associated with the history of Ireland, and is rightfully claimed as one of its national emblems.

The harp, too, has its story much later than that of St. Patrick's cross, but yet bringing an interesting connection with the patron saint.

The ancient arms of Ireland, from the time of Henry II., in 1172, had been three golden crowns set upon a blue ground.[76]

These ancient arms of Ireland are the arms of the Province of Munster, and are now worn on the helmet plate and glengarry of the Royal Munster Fusiliers regiment of the British army.

Henry VIII. was the first English king who used an Irish emblem. When he was proclaimed King of Ireland, he placed the harp of Hibernia upon the coinage which he then issued, instead of the "three crowns" which had been used under his predecessors, but he did not introduce the harp into his royal arms, nor place the red cross of St. Patrick upon his banner.

The first English monarch to insert an Irish emblem in the official insignia of the sovereign was Queen Elizabeth, who introduced one in the design of her "Great Seal." Instead of using the three Irish crowns, she inserted a harp as the emblem of the Irish nation, and among the banners displayed at her funeral Ireland was represented by a blue flag having upon it a golden harp surmounted by a crown.[77] James I., her successor, was the first king to introduce an Irish emblem into the "royal standard," and from that time onward the golden harp of Hibernia, on the ancient blue ground of the three Irish crowns, has been shown in one of the quarters of the British standard as the emblem of Ireland. In the arms of all the sovereigns, from James I., 1603 (15), to and including William IV., 1837, the front of the harp was formed by the female figure representing the goddess Hibernia. During the Victorian period a change was introduced in the shape of the harp, which has been altered to that of the ancient Irish harp, connected in form and legend with King Brian Boru (Boroimhe).

The exploits of this most noted of the early kings of Ireland had been mainly devoted to the defence of his kingdom against the invasions of the Danes during the period when, under Canute, they had well-nigh conquered all England.

Although in the main successful, he was slain in battle, according to some, in 1039,[78] or, as others report, in the hour of victory over the Danes at Clontarf, near Dublin, in 1014.[79]

The king, having accepted Christianity, presented, in 1004, a golden votive offering upon the altar of the church at Armagh, and here, in accordance with his dying request, his body was buried after the battle of Clontarf.[80]

This city of Armagh is reputed to have been founded about A.D. 445, by St. Patrick, and to this account is accredited the ecclesiastical pre-eminence which has always enshrined the city, for the Bishop of Armagh is the "Archbishop and Primate of all Ireland" of the Protestant Church, and it is the See city also of the "Primate of Ireland" of the Roman Catholic Church.

Of all the traditional patrons of Irish music, King Brian Boru was the most renowned, and thus in poetry and song his name became identified with the Irish harp.

The minstrelsy of the Irish harper has held sway and been cherished through all the ages by the Irish people, whose temperament may have been affected, or else has been most touchingly expressed, by its strange and mystic cadences. The sweet pathos of these ancient melodies has given tone and inspiration to most of the Irish songs, markedly to those of the sweet singer Moore, whose music has installed in affectionate memory,

"The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed."

34. The Throne of Queen Victoria in the House of Lords, 1900.

31. Seal of Carrickfergus, 1605.

32. Royal Arms of Queen Victoria.

In the old seal of Carrickfergus (31), granted by James I., the form of this ancient harp of Brian Boru is excellently displayed.

Within the circle are the initials of the King, I.R. (Jacobus Rex), and the date 1605, and on the shield in the centre are three Irish harps, having the rounded front pillar and the curious upper sweep of the neck, termed the "harmonic curve," of the type known as the Irish harp of Brian Boru.

Although this Irish harp was introduced in the seal of the Irish city during his reign, the emblem which had been placed in his royal arms by James I. as the emblem of Ireland was the angelic harp of Hibernia, and in this form it remained on the royal standards of all the succeeding sovereigns until Queen Victoria, in whose royal arms (32) the Irish harp was displayed.

In 1849, when Queen Victoria first visited Ireland, being the first occasion upon which a British Queen had ever visited the Island, a medal was struck to commemorate the event. On this are the profiles of Her Majesty the Queen and the Prince Consort, and on the reverse (33) is the old Irish harp surmounted by the royal crown.

It is true that the angelic harp is frequently to be seen upon the flags flown as royal standards, but the Irish harp is most beautifully shown in the coat-of-arms upon the back of Her Majesty's royal throne in the House of Lords at Westminster (34).

As the harp of the pagan goddess Hibernia had been changed to the Christian cross of St. Patrick, so now again it had been followed by the Irish harp of the Christian King, Brian Boru, and through his grave at St. Patrick's ancient city of Armagh is again connected with Ireland's patron saint. Thus, whether it be cross or harp, both the official emblems of Ireland are associated with St. Patrick.

During only one period in the early story of our Flag had Ireland been represented on its folds, as is shown in Cromwell's Jacks and in the Commonwealth Ensign (Pl. [IV.], figs. 1 and 2), but it had not been by a cross, as were the other nationalities, but by a golden harp on a blue ground.

Another emblem of Ireland, the green shamrock, is also connected in legend with St. Patrick, as having been used by him, through the lesson of its three leaves joined in one, in explaining the doctrine of the Trinity. Thus both the shamrock and the red saltire cross form the salient features of the insignia of the "Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick," the Irish order of knighthood.

35. Arms of the Fitzgeralds.

33. Medal of Queen's First Visit to Ireland.

The Irish red cross on a white ground had been the ancient banner of the Irish family of the Fitzgeralds before the time of the conquest of Ireland under Henry II., and it still appears in the arms of their descendants (35). It appears to have been used as a flag at Cromwell's funeral, but notwithstanding its still earlier associations the red cross of St. Patrick does not seem to have been formally recognized as the general national emblem for Ireland until about the close of the seventeenth century. Its entrance into the Union Jack had long been delayed for reasons which will be pointed out.

Though the kings of England had, since Henry II., in 1172, been "lords paramount," and since Henry VIII. been "kings of Ireland," the national Jack of Ireland had not been joined with the other Jacks. When the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew were combined in the "additional" Jack of James, in 1606, it was not included, nor was it afterwards, in the first Union Jack of Queen Anne, in 1707; so that for all these centuries the red cross of St. Patrick had continued alone. At length, the time was coming when another change was to be made in the Union Jack, and it was in 1801, under George III., that the red saltire cross of Ireland first joined the two sister crosses. For the immediately previous two hundred years the Irishman had gallantly contributed his prowess to the glories won under the two-crossed Jack, in which his nation had not been represented; but from this time onward his own Irish cross entered into its proper place in the national Union Jack, and received its acknowledged position as the emblem of the Irish kingdom.

[CHAPTER XV.]

THE JACKS IN THE THIRTEEN COLONIES OF NORTH AMERICA.

We now turn to the history of the Jacks in the country to the south of Canada, where immigration from England had been building up the thirteen English colonies which subsequently became the United States of America. The Spanish flag had been planted in 1492 by Columbus upon San Salvador in the Bahamas. In 1497, Cabot had placed the St. George cross, the English Jack of Henry VII., on the North Atlantic shores, and the English claim by right of first discovery was thereafter laid to Newfoundland, Labrador, and the coast of America, from Cape Breton to Maine. Under Elizabeth, Raleigh, in 1584, expanded the claim of the St. George cross in Virginia far to the south, and in 1602, under the same flag, Bartholomew Gosnold, sailing out for the merchant adventurers of Bristol, exploited the shores of Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Elizabeth, which still retain the names he then gave them. Other adventurers, too, there were, who were searching the unknown resources of the new continent. Jacques Cartier, in his second voyage, had, in 1535, occupied Stadacona (Quebec), and the French flag had been established on the shores of the St. Lawrence, the permanent settlement at Quebec being founded by Champlain, in 1608. For more than two hundred years the cross of St. George had been prospecting along the Atlantic coasts and laying claim to their possession, but no settlements were permanently established on these shores by any except the Frenchman, De Monts, who raised the white flag of France at Port Royal, on the Bay of Fundy, and laid the foundations of the town in 1605, and from this time on began the contest for their final ownership.

The sovereigns of France and England had with profuse liberality given royal grants of American territory to their venturesome merchant seamen, and in this manner James I., in 1605, partitioned off the larger part of these shores to the two merchant-adventurer companies of London and Plymouth.

The Plymouth Company was granted the country between what is now known as New Brunswick and Long Island, to be called Northern Virginia, and the London Company from the Potomac to Cape Fear in Carolina, to be called Southern Virginia—the two hundred miles intervening between them being left unoccupied in order to separate their boundaries, and so ensure peace between the rival companies, each company being warned not to make any occupation beyond the limits of the territory so allotted to them.

The London Company in 1607 established themselves in Virginia, where their Capt. Newport, after a weary and wave-tossed voyage, named their first shelter and landing place "Point Comfort," and the river the "James," and their settlement "Jamestown," in honour of his King.

It was into this interval between the two English companies that Hendrick Hudson sailed in 1609, and planted the Dutch flag, with its three lengthwise stripes of orange, white and blue, the orange being the uppermost, over New Amsterdam (now New York).

To these English colonists fell the honour of the first contest for the flag.

The French had occupied Acadia, and were quietly extending southward, when, in 1613, Commander Samuel Argall, of Southern Virginia,[81] finding them trading off Mount Desert, in what is now Maine, captured and destroyed their new shore settlement of St. Sauveur, and next year, heading an expedition sent out by his Colony, advanced farther northward, and destroyed their headquarters at Port Royal. Thus the colonists of Virginia, acting for their nation, defended the English claim, and repelled the interference made with the cross of St. George in its rights of prior discovery under Cabot.

The Plymouth Company had not been so energetic as were the London Company in the occupying of their "plantations," but, in 1614, Captain John Smith, on their behalf, settled a port which he called "New Plymouth," and gave the name of "New England" to the surrounding country.

While these things were going on in America the migration of the Puritans from England to Holland had taken place. These non-conforming Independents left their homes in England, in 1609, not from any disloyalty to their native land, but because their religious views forbade them to bend to what they considered were the unbiblical Church requirements of James I. To his ritual regulations they would not conform, so they removed themselves and their families to Holland. Strong in their English nationality they remained for ten years at Leyden, an isolated and unsettled colony in a foreign land. To England they could not return, no place in Europe was open to them for settlement without losing their language and changing their flag, and they must, therefore, leave Holland and seek the New World lands across the ocean. The Dutch offered them assistance and favourable arrangements for colonization in their Dutch possessions in America. They were also offered inducements by the London Company to settle on the Delaware, in their colony of Virginia. As it was considered that complications might arise if an English colony were to proceed across the seas under the Dutch flag, they declined the offer of Holland and accepted the English proposition, and the consent of King James was obtained to their repatriation in the English territory in America without conforming to the religious conditions to which they had so devotedly objected in the Old Land.

Thus they sought the new land, not as rebels, but as loyalists returning in gladness to their nation's flag.

Forming the "Pilgrim Company," in which they all took shares, a vessel named the Speedwell was purchased at Delft-Haven in Holland, and another named the Mayflower in London. The two parties joined at Southampton. After leaving the shores of England the Speedwell was found to be unseaworthy, and the two vessels, therefore, returned to England, when it was determined that the Mayflower should proceed alone. There not being sufficient accommodation on the one ship for the combined expeditions, a number were left behind. The Mayflower, a vessel of only 180 tons, sailed from Plymouth with about 100 of the "Pilgrims" crowded on board. On reaching the shores of America in November, 1620, after a voyage of two months and five days, they found that they were far to the north of the Virginia Colony to which they had been commissioned. Tired of the sea, but being hopeful that they would receive, as they subsequently did, a grant of land from the Plymouth Company, and being without a charter for the territory on which they were about to land, it became necessary to make a new agreement between themselves for the government of their colony. A "compact" was accordingly drawn up on board the Mayflower "off Cap-Codd," and signed by all the heads of families. In this document they described themselves as

" ... the loyall subjects of our dread Soveraigne Lord King James by the grace of God of Gt. Britaine, France and Ireland, King-defender of ye faith, &c., having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of ye Christian faith and honour of our King & Countrie a voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye Northerne parts of Virginia,"

and the date of the year is given as

"the eighteenth of 'Our Soveraigne Lord King James.'"[82]

As the Mayflower was an English ship she would carry the St. George cross flag on the foremast, and as they declared themselves to be loyal subjects of King James it is most probable that the "additional" Union Jack of James I. was also displayed at the main.

Such was the beginning of the migration of the Puritans from England, which, following this first colony, continued during the remainder of the century.

That the Pilgrims carried the English Jack is plainly shown by the controversies which arose from time to time in this "New England" district upon the subject of the use of the cross of St. George, not for want of any loyalty to it, but from their strict religious views.

John Endicott, and the Puritans who subsequently settled at Salem, objected to the cross in the flag as being an "idolatrous emblem," and, in 1634, "defaced the ensign by taking out one part of the red cross."[83]

Much discussion ensued upon these conscientious scruples, and the offenders were summoned to appear before the Court of Assistants, but decision was deferred for several meetings, "because the Court could not agree about the thing, whether the ensigns should be laid by, in regard that many refused to follow them." It was, however, ordered by the Commissioners for military affairs that all the ensigns should in the meantime be laid aside.

Endicott was finally tried at a general court held at Newtown, and "his offence found great; he judging the cross to be a sin, did not content himself to have it reformed at Salem, not taking care that others might be brought out of it; also laying a blemish on the other magistrates, as if they would suffer idolatry, and giving occasion to England to think ill of us." He was, however, lightly sentenced by suspension for one year of right to hold civil office, because "he did it out of tenderness of conscience and not of any evil intent."[84]

A suggestion was made that red and white roses should be inserted in the flag, instead of the cross, as being English emblems, and the ministers were "to write to England and consult the most wise and godly;" but nothing came of this suggestion.

Opinions must have continued strong in the controversy, for at the close of the year the commissioners appointed colours for the military companies, but left out the cross in them all, leaving the space blank, but they ordered that the King's arms were to be inserted in the flag which was to be used on the fort on Castle Island, at Boston.[85]

In the following year (1636) much heart-burning was occasioned by the masters of several ships trading to Boston declaring that because the King's colours were not displayed at the fort the colonists were all traitors and rebels. This imputation was most warmly resented by the people, and the captains were promptly tried by the Massachusetts court for this defamation of the loyalty of the colony.

The offenders acknowledged their error and made humble apology in open court, but in doing so suggested that the King's colours ought to be shown on the fort. To this answer was made, "that 'we had not the King's colours'; thereupon two of them did offer them freely to us. We replied that, for our part, we were fully persuaded that the cross in the ensign was idolatrous, and, therefore, might not set it in our ensign, but because the fort was the King's and maintained in his name, we thought that his own colours might be spread there."[86]

The King's own colours would be the two-crossed Jack of James, which Charles I. had, in 1634, declared as His Majesty's Jack to be the "ornament proper for our owne ships." This Jack was ordered to be thereafter displayed at the fort, lest it might again be thought that the colony had abated its allegiance.

In 1643, the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut formed themselves for defence against the French and the Dutch into an alliance as the "United Colonies of New England."

That their forces had continued to use the two-crossed "King's Jack" of Charles I. is proved by the fact that they found it necessary, owing to the change of sovereignty in the Mother Country, to pass an order authorizing a change in their own flag. The Commonwealth of England had, in 1648, abolished the use of the two-crossed Jack. In 1651, the fleet of Cromwell which crossed the Atlantic was to be seen flying the single English Jack of St. George and the new Commonwealth Ensign at Barbadoes and in Virginia. Following the action of the Home Government, the General Court of Massachusetts overcame their local scruples and passed an order adopting the English ensign:

"Forasmuch as this Court conceives the old English colours now used by the Parliament of England to be a necessary badge of distinction between the English and other nations in all places in the world, till the State of England shall alter the same, which we much desire, we being of the same nation, have therefore ordered that the Captain of the Castle shall presently advance the aforesaid colours of England upon the Castle upon all necessary occasions."[87]

So the English Jack took the place of the Jack of James in America.

Under this St. George Jack, with its red cross and white ground, the colonists not only organized and defended their own territories, but also carried on active operations against the French. As in its earlier years, so also throughout the century, the extensions southward of the French settlements in Cape Breton and Acadia had been a menace to the colonies. The colony of Massachusetts itself took the matter in hand, and organized an expedition which it sent out under the leadership of Major Sedgwick, in 1654, when Port Royal was taken from the French, but, much to the chagrin of the colony, only to be restored to France, in 1667, by the peace of Breda.

The old controversy about the cross in the flag had by no means been settled by the decision of the General Court of Massachusetts, in 1651, and although it was so displayed officially, yet many individuals still held to the original religious objections.

In 1663, the "Ensign Red," with the plain red cross of St. George in the upper corner, had been ordered by Charles II. to be used.

Thomas Singleton, master of the ship Charles, notes (when off Boston) in his diary of a voyage to the American coast in 1679-80: "I observed that while the English flag or colour has a red ground with a small white field in the uppermost corner where there is a red cross, they have here dispensed with this cross in their colours and preserved the rest."[88]

The New England colonists were evidently flying the Ensign Red, but had taken the red cross out of the Jack in its upper corner, leaving only the white ground. It was in this it had been suggested that the roses of England should be introduced, and in which the "pine-tree" emblem was afterwards placed.

The importance of the particular flags which were to be used along these Atlantic coasts, where the nationalities were constantly coming into contact, was eminently increased by the terms of a treaty, made in 1686, between James II. and Louis XIV., providing "for rights and pre-eminences in the American seas." Under this it was agreed that,

"the British shall not trade nor fish in the havens, bays, creeks, roads, shoals or places of the French in Canada,"

and vice versa, the French were not to interfere with the British; and further,

"that whensoever the subjects of either king shall be forced to enter with their ships into the other's ports, they shall be obliged at their coming in to hang out their flag or colours of their nation, and give notice of their coming by thrice firing a cannon, and if they have no cannon by thrice firing a musket, which if they shall omit to do, and, however, send their boat on shore, they shall be liable to confiscation."[89]

Governor Andros brought out with him from England, in 1686, his official flag as Governor of New England. A drawing of this in the British State papers office[90] shows it to have been a large St. George Jack, having on the centre of the red cross a royal crown, and underneath the initials of the King, I.R. (Jacobus Rex), in gold. This Governor's flag was officially used by Governor Andros in the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The united colonies of New England, moved, no doubt, by the necessities of the Treaty of Whitehall, passed an Order-in-Council, in 1686, directing the cross to be restored to their Colours. In this way the red cross of St. George came back into the blank white space which had been left in the upper corner of the Ensign Red.

We get some glimpse of the mental difficulties of the times from the diary of Samuel Sewall, an officer in the colonial forces. On August 20th, 1686, he writes:

"I was and am in great exercise about the cross to be put into the colours, and afraid that if I should have a hand in it whether it may not hinder my entrance into the Holy Land."

He even contemplated the necessity of retiring from the service, and enters:

"Sabbath day, August 22.

"In the evening seriously discoursed with Captain Eliot and Frary signifying my inability to hold, and reading Mr. Cotton Mather's arguments to them about the cross, and say'd that to introduce it into Boston at this time was much, seeing that it had been kept out more than my lifetime, and now the cross much set by in England and here; and it scarce could be put in, but I must have a hand in it. I fetch home the silk Elizur Holyoke had of me to make the cross, last Friday morn, and went and discourse Mr. Mather. He judged it sin to have it put in, but the captain not in fault, but I could hardly understand how the command of others could wholly excuse them, at least me who had spoken so much against it in April, 1681, and that summer and forward, upon occasion of Captain Walley's putting the cross in his colours."[91]

36. Medal of Louis XIV., "Kebeca Liberata," 1690.

But the crosses were restored, and it was under this single cross Ensign Red that, during the war between William III. and Mary and Louis XIV., the nine colonies[92] united together, and, in 1690, of their own motion and at their own expense,[93] sent out a naval expedition from Boston, under Admiral William Phips, against the French in Canada. The fleet successfully attacked and again captured Port Royal,[94] but arriving before Quebec, above whose ramparts was flying the white flag and fleur-de-lis of France, was repulsed by the redoubtable Count Frontenac. The records of the expedition, and of the episode of the capture of the flag of the Admiral, which, being shot away from its halliards and falling into the water, was swum after and brought to shore by the venturesome French,[95] attest that this fleet of the United Colonies was sailing under the cross of St. George. A copy of the medal (36), issued by Louis XIV. of France in commemoration of the event, is given in the narrative,[96] showing three fleur-de-lis of France, and the cross of St. George on a flag reversed.

While the forces of the United Colonies thus used, in common, the English ensign, some of the colonies had distinctive flags. Massachusetts at times displayed the red ensign with a "pine-tree" on the white ground in the upper corner instead of the cross to which so much objection had been made. The flag of New England (37) was the English red ensign with the pine-tree, or else a globe signifying the New World, in the upper corner of the white canton bearing the cross of St. George. The instance given is taken from the old Dutch publication of 1711.[97]

This New England ensign was in continuous local use from 1686 to 1775.

37. New England Ensign.

(From a Dutch publication of 1711.)

The change in the English flag, made under Queen Anne, from the cross of St. George to the two-crossed Jack, brought a corresponding change in the union flag in America.

The narrative of the change in Massachusetts, in 1701, is given in Chapter XXVII. (page 280). In 1709, similar instructions were sent out to Governor Hunter for the Province of New York, and the drawing of the flag[98] which is attached to the documents is the same in 1709 as in the instructions of 1701.

Under this Queen Anne Union Jack, Port Royal was once more taken by the forces of the United Colonies, sent out from Boston under General Nicholson, in 1710, and its name changed in honour of their Queen to Annapolis, where both Royal name and British ensign have ever since remained.

The colonists had in all these expeditions stoutly proved their share in the prowess of the British Jacks. Acadia,[99] by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), had been ceded to Britain, but Cape Breton had remained in the hands of the French, and Louisbourg having been created by them the strongest fortress in the New World, the British colonists determined upon its reduction.

38. The Louisbourg Medal, 1758.

In 1745, an expedition, entirely colonial, organized by General Shirley, of Massachusetts, and William Vaughan, of New Hampshire, sailed from Boston under General Pepperell. After a siege of forty days Louisbourg surrendered. In 1748, the fortress was again restored to the fleur-de-lis by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, but only to be retaken by Wolfe, in 1758, and the Queen Anne Jack, which the United Colonies had before placed above it, was restored and is shown again in the Louisbourg medal,[100] used to commemorate Wolfe's victory (38).

On yet another field the United Colonists carried the Union Jack. In 1762, when Havana was captured from the Spanish by Lord Albemarle, there were in his fleet of 203 vessels, and among his land forces of 12,000 men, alongside the men from across the sea, colonial contingents sent by the colonies of Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Maine.[101]

When Cuba was thus gained for the Union Jack the colonists of America were joined with their British brothers from the Old Land in lowering the flag of Spain, but the island was restored to Spain by the Treaty of Paris, February 10th, 1763.[102]

Thus for over two and a half centuries (1497-1762) had the English Jacks wrestled with the forests and battled along the shores of America, carried first by the merchant adventurers, and afterwards by the several and the United Colonies, as sign of their origin and allegiance. For yet another long period was the two-crossed Jack to be carried by those who had so manfully won competence and glory beneath it, so that at length, even when joining for contest with their parent realm, the Thirteen Colonies held its past and record in such esteem that they placed the Union Jack of Queen Anne in their new Union Ensign as a sign and remembrance of their common history.

[CHAPTER XVI.]

THE UNION FLAGS OF THE UNITED STATES.

The thirteen English colonies which in succession had been planted in North America, along the shores of the Atlantic from the French possessions in Acadia to the Spanish possessions in Florida, had each its own "colony flag"; the "United Colonies of New England" had devised the New England flag to distinguish their particular union; but the national flag which declared the union of all the colonies with one another, and with the Motherland beyond the seas, was the "Union Jack" of Great Britain.

It was under the Union Jack that the forces of the colonies of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia had marshalled in 1755, and with the English regulars had advanced, under the leadership of Braddock and Washington, to drive the French out of the Ohio Valley, but to meet with such signal disaster on the banks of the Monongahela.

In the same year, under the cross of St. George in their United Colonies flag, the colonists of New England joined in the victories over the French, and changed the name of the lake, by whose shores they fought, from "St. Sacrament" to "Lake George."

Under the successive Jacks the colonies had grown into commonwealths, had expanded their territories, and their sons had written their names in British history by gallant deed and notable achievement.

Thus the crosses in the Union Jack had a vivid meaning, and their local historic record had won for them the attachment of the people in the colonies.

The occupation of Quebec by Wolfe in 1759 and the subsequent retirement of French rule from Canada and the valley of the North Mississippi had freed the colonies from conflict with the power which had hitherto opposed their expansion beyond the Alleghanies. They were now free to exploit the West, which this victory of the parent realm had gained for them, and which was to be the wide field for their subsequent expansion. Combining together for these adventures had brought the separate colonies more into contact with each other and created points of internal union. At length the time came when rifts in the methods of government on this continent began to show themselves.

Troubles had been brewing between the colonies and the Home Government ever since the passing of the obnoxious Stamp Act of 1765, but, although the friction had at times been great, there was no intention on the part of the colonists of severing their allegiance from the parent realm. The cause of the colonists in America was largely espoused among the English people. Lord Effingham, upon his regiment (the 22nd) being ordered to America, resigned his commission in the British army, "rather than consent to bear arms against my fellow-subjects in America."[103]

No more ardent adherents or outspoken advocates for the self-government of the colonies were to be found in America than were Chatham, Burke, and Charles James Fox in the Parliament of England, and under the later and better conditions which have since governed the relations between Great Britain and her outlying colonies there would, in all probability, have been no breaking of the old home ties.

Engaged in the throes of a great European war, Britain had poured her men into Spain and could spare but few of her own for service in America. Forces, consisting largely of hired Hanoverian and Hessian soldiers, had been sent across the sea to enforce the objectionable enactments, and hostilities had broken out in June, 1775, between the resident citizens and these imported "regulars"; but even after this entanglement, the flag, which was introduced for the "United Colonies," was raised, not for the purpose of indicating any alteration in allegiance, but to evidence the local union of the still loyal colonies against the dictation of the impracticable home ministry.

That these were their views towards Great Britain they most plainly stated in the address they sent to the King immediately after their armies had been placed in the field:

"We not only most ardently desire that the former harmony between her and these Colonies may be restored, but that a concord may be established between them as to perpetuate its blessings uninterrupted to succeeding generations in both countries."[104]

As in previous wars of defence or of adventure, the separate colonial forces were again brought together into one army. On their assembling at Cambridge, in July, 1775, they were mustered into one service under General Washington. As was recorded in a local paper, "None of the men who have been raised by this (Massachusetts) and several other colonies are in future to be distinguished as the troops of any particular colony, but as the forces of 'The United Colonies of North America,' into whose joint service they have been taken by the Continental Congress."[105]

As early as October, Washington found the necessity of having some "continental flag" which should identify the whole of the forces of "The United Colonies of North America" thus assembled together under his command, instead of having the military detachment from each colony continuing to use its own individual flag.

An existing ensign used by the Colony of Pennsylvania was at first proposed by him for this purpose, having a white ground with a tree in the middle, and the motto, "Appeal to Heaven."[106]

This was succeeded by a new design, devised for the Continental Union flag (39), which, to the accompanying salute of thirteen guns, was raised by Washington over the camp of his army at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 1st January, 1776, being the occasion of its first appearance.

39. The First Union Flag, 1776.

This flag was called "The Grand Union" (Pl. [VI.], fig. 1). It was composed of thirteen stripes of alternate white and red—one for each colony—and in the upper corner was the British Union Jack of that period, displaying the two crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, as introduced in 1707.

There existed at the time a flag which had been carried by the English East India Company over their British possessions in India since 1704. This was composed of thirteen stripes, red and white alternately, and had the single red cross of St. George upon a white ground (the old English Jack) in the upper corner. This flag might have been seen on the vessels trading to America and exchanging products between the English East Indian and the American colonies, and thus being recognized as a "colonial flag" it may, with the change of form of the Union Jack, have suggested the new ensign.

PLATE VI.

There is no direct evidence as to the flag which had been raised by General Putnam at the outbreak of hostilities at Bunker Hill, June 17th, 1775, but tradition reports[107] that it was the ensign of the colony of New England (37), which, like the East India ensign, had the St. George's cross on a white ground in the upper corner; but the whole fly of the flag was red.

In the selection of a new flag for the combined forces of the united colonies, what design could be more reasonable or more appropriate than the selection of that Union Jack under which their united armies had so often fought, together with the addition of thirteen stripes to indicate the number of colonies then assembled together?

This retention of the Union Jack in the new flag was designedly intended to signify that the American colonies retained their allegiance to their Motherland of Great Britain, although they were contesting the methods of taxation promulgated by its Government.

By this flag the thirteen colonies testified that, though in arms, they still claimed to be Britons, and were demanding for themselves all the rights of citizenship which such relation conferred.

It was, as one of their orators has well said, "the flag of the British colonies in arms to secure the rights and liberties of British subjects."[108]

The first Union flag raised by Washington over the armies of the united colonies thus displayed the British Union Jack.

Another flag (40) bearing the Union Jack is still extant.[109] It is a crimson red flag, having a rattlesnake painted upon it, and in the upper corner is the Union Jack of 1707. This was carried by a regiment of the colony of Pennsylvania, and was used at the Battle of Trenton, December 26th, 1776, and in subsequent engagements with the British regular forces.

40. The Pennsylvania Flag, 1776.

The intention to cure the troubles by constitutional means had become unhappily merged in the appeal to arms.[110] As the hostilities proceeded rancour grew, and then a new flag was sought for, which should typify the changed conditions. The source from which arose the idea of this final design we shall presently see.

On July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence followed,[111] but the "Grand Union" still continued to be used by the thirteen colonies, which had now become thirteen States. It was not until June 14th, 1777, or almost a year after the Declaration, that a new national flag was fully developed.

The Congress of the United States, then in session at Philadelphia, approved of a report made by a committee[112] which had been appointed to consider the selection of a Union flag, and enacted,

"That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation."

The new enactment was not at once put in force and a still further delay ensued, but at length, on September 3rd, 1777, this flag was officially proclaimed as the Union Ensign of the United States (Pl. [VI.], fig. 2), and was the first national flag which was officially adopted by the authority of Congress.

41. Arms of the Washington Family.

42. Washington's Book-Plate.

As Washington himself suggested the first design, and had introduced the second, it is not improbable, and, indeed, it is recorded that he actually had somewhat to do with the designing of the final one.[113] However this last report may be, his friends and admirers most certainly had, and the similarity between the design of the final flag and the coat-of-arms of the Washington family points to the source from which they deduced the completed design.

Upon the tombstones of the family in Sulgrave Church, Northamptonshire, England, and upon the old manor house occupied by them in the time of Henry VIII., is to be seen the shield (41) of the Weshyntons,[114] or Washingtons, an old English county family, who traced their lineage back into the fifteenth century.

John Washington, a descendant of this family, had been a loyal cavalier, standing staunchly by his King, Charles I. When Cromwell and the Roundheads came into power, the Royalist Washington emigrated, in 1657, to Virginia, bringing out his family, and with them his family shield, on which are shown three stars, above alternate stripes of red and white. Having settled upon considerable estates, he and his descendants kept up the old ways, and maintained the style and country standards of their English forefathers.

George Washington, the subsequent President, was the great-grandson of the old loyalist colonist. He, too, served in the forces of his sovereign, King George III., and maintained the old family traditions and habits in the same way as did all the "first families" of Virginia.

On the panels of his carriage were painted his family coat-of-arms. It appeared on the book-plate (42) of the books in his library, and the first commissions which, as commander-in-chief, he issued to the officers of the Continental army were sealed with his family seal (43).

43. Washington's Seals.

Thus the suggestion for the further alteration was ready to hand. The similarity of one portion of the design already existing could not fail to have been noticed, for the stripes on the Washington coat-of-arms were alternately red and white, as were also those on the Grand Union.

It had been suggested that the idea of the "new" constellation was derived from the analogy of the "old" constellation of Orion containing thirteen stars, and that the form of the stars was taken from a seal said to have belonged to John Adams, one of the committee for designing the flag.[115]

Reference to the details of this seal shows an eagle bearing in its claws the lyre of Orion, both being surrounded by a circle of thirteen stars; but the stars on the seal are all shown as sidereal six-pointed stars, and not five-pointed as are the Washington stars.

The stars which were inserted in the flag when the Union Jack was withdrawn were not the six-pointed stars which would be used heraldically if representing a "sidereal constellation," but are the five-pointed stars of the Washington armorial bearings.

So it happened that the stars and stripes of the coat-of-arms of the old loyalist English family, to which the successful Revolutionary general belonged, and of the seal with which he had attested the commissions which his officers had received from him, formed the basis for the design of the new American flag, and through them the memory of the great leader and first President of the United States is indissolubly connected with the Stars and Stripes, the national ensign (Pl. [III.], fig. 3) of the nation which he brought into existence.

The American had good right to be proud of that Jack, in whose glories he had so valiantly borne his part, and when as Englishmen battling for the rights of Englishmen the united colonies formed their colonial ensign they had rightly placed the Union Jack in its upper canton as evidence of those glories and of that claim.

Afterwards, when their new nation had been framed, and the Washington stars had marked the new allegiance, the thirteen stripes of the old thirteen English colonies still remained to attest to himself and to the world the Americans' share in the preceding centuries of Anglo-Saxon adventure and their heritage in all the liberties and literature of the English tongue. The rights won by the Barons from John, the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, are still theirs by hereditary right, and the thirteen Anglo-Saxon stripes in his national emblem proclaim this to the American of to-day as they did to his forefathers in the thirteen colonies who first placed them in his union ensign.

The bitternesses arising out of a fratricidal contest fanned by the misrepresentations of fervid orators have for long decades misread the events and obscured the history of that dividing strife, but British law and the English tongue still speak in the flag of the old English colonies which continues to form part of the national ensign of the United States.

[CHAPTER XVII.]

THE JACK AND PARLIAMENTARY UNION IN BRITAIN.

The history of the flag, so far as we now have followed it, has been the story of martial or naval prowess and of the extension of its power and command around the world; but there is another story told in its combinations which is even greater in power, and has still deeper meaning in the welfare of the peoples who have come beneath its sway.

The kingdom of England for centuries had its own St. George's Jack, and the kingdom of Scotland its cross of St. Andrew. These red and white crosses had been the accepted symbols of their respective nationalities. Each of the kingdoms had its own separate Parliament, differing, it is true, from that of the other in methods and in many details, but representing the constitutional machinery adopted in each community for consultation between the King and his subjects, who, through their representatives, were advised upon matters connected with the government of their country, whether in its internal laws or in its relations with foreign powers. In course of time the same sovereign, in the person of James I., had by virtue of his birth succeeded to the throne of England, as well as to that of Scotland. The kingly office in both the kingdoms had thus been merged in the person of one and the same King. A new flag had been created representing the allegiance which had then been joined in the one sovereign. In this the crosses of the two kingdoms had been joined together in one design, but the separate national Jacks of each had been still retained and their use continued in force.

These separate national Jacks were certainly intended to evidence the continued separate national existence of each kingdom, while the new personal Jack or banner of the King would appear to have evidenced the union of the thrones in one person, and to represent the united fealty offered to the one King. Yet it is fairly open to question whether this Union Jack of James I. was at first created to mean as much as this, or whether it was not, after all, introduced more for the purpose of avoiding trouble between the sailors of the two nations, and only intended at first to be a local convenience for the preventing of dissensions.

The new Union Jack certainly did not represent a union of the nations, else why did the two national Jacks still remain? If it had been intended to represent the fealty of his subjects to their King, why was it not introduced immediately upon his accession, and why was not the red cross of the Irish included as well as the crosses of the English and Scots, for the Irish were equally at the time subjects of James I.?

The Irish had, in fact, been subjects of his predecessors for many centuries. In 1171, after the conquest of the island had been effected by Henry II. of England, the native princes of Ireland had declared fealty to the prince—not in his capacity as king, but in acknowledgment of his position as having become by conquest the "Lord of Ireland." The country had from very early days been governed by its own Parliaments, whose meetings are recorded as having taken place as early as 1295; but it was not until 1522 that Ireland was raised to the rank and designation of a kingdom. In this year an Act was passed by the Parliament of Ireland declaring Henry VIII., the King of England, to be also the King of Ireland, and it was by virtue of this Act that the King of England first assumed the additional title of King of Ireland. The flag of England was at this same time the single St. George Jack; yet, although the crowns were thus formally united, the cross of St. Patrick was not added to the red cross of St. George as a Union Jack in sign of fealty to the one sovereign.

After this, the Kingdom of Ireland owned fealty to three more sovereigns of England in succession;[116] yet under none of them were the crosses of the two national flags joined together. It was not until a Scotch king, the great-grandson of Henry VIII., became King of England, that any of the three national crosses were combined. In 1603, James I. became King of Ireland and England, as well as of Scotland; yet notwithstanding that the three sister kingdoms were thus united in allegiance under his united crown, the three separate crosses of the national Jacks of each were not united in one flag. James I. on his accession had at once added the Irish harp to the quarterings of his Royal Standard (15), but three more years passed before he entered the red cross of St. George in the "additional" two-crossed Union Jack which he then created. All these incidents point, evidently, to the view that the union of the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew in the new flag of 1606 did not arise as an emblem of the union of thrones, but was mainly devised, as the King's proclamation distinctly stated, for the special and local purpose of keeping the sailors of the two nations most interested in shipping at peace, and thus to prevent their crews from quarrelling with one another as they sailed their ships around the shores of Great Britain.

It required, in fact, something more than a mere union of allegiance to create a real Union Jack, and to entitle the national crosses of the kingdoms to be entered upon its folds; and what this requirement was the history of the entry of the St. Patrick cross into the Union flag enables us to see even yet more clearly.

It will be remembered that a change in the "additional" Jack of James was made in the sixth year of the reign of Queen Anne, and that the occasion of this change was coincident with the union of the separate Parliaments of England and Scotland into one British Parliament.

It was so soon as this occurred, but not until then, that the flag in which the two national crosses were blended was made the sole national ensign.

It was in 1707 that this first Union Jack was created. Queen Anne was at the time Queen of Ireland as well as Queen of England and Scotland. She had quartered the harp of Ireland in her Royal Standard five years previously, at the time when she had commenced her reign; yet the Queen, when forming the new flag, did not join the cross of St. Patrick in her Union Jack any more than had King James when forming his.

For ninety-four years longer the red cross Irish Jack continued in its separate existence. The reign of Queen Anne had come to its close; three more sovereigns[117] in succession had ascended the united throne of Great Britain and Ireland, and successive changes had been made in the emblazonings on the Royal Standard, yet in all these reigns the Union Jack, which had been declared to be the only flag of the realm to be worn by their subjects, and which was raised over the new dependencies which the united valour of all three nationalities won for the crown, contained only the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, representing but two of the kingdoms included under its rule (44).

At last, in 1801, during the forty-first year of the reign of George III., the Irish Parliament was united with the Union Parliament of England and Scotland, and then, and not till then, was the red cross of St. Patrick blended with the other two national crosses.

The emblem of Scotland had not been blended with that of England in one Union Jack until their Parliaments had been united; so the emblem of Ireland was not added to the other two until her Parliament had also been joined with theirs. So soon, then, as the three kingdoms were joined in union under one Parliament, for the first time the three crosses of the three national Jacks were united in one three-crossed Union Jack.

44. Fort George and the Port of New York in 1770.

(From an old print.)

We thus have learned what was the necessary qualification to entitle a national cross to be entered in the union ensign.

It needed a union of Parliaments to create a real Union Jack—a flag in which the national crosses should each continue to retain their national significance, and, when joined together in union, be still accorded the same precedence which had previously attached to each when separately displayed.

The history of these successive blendings shows most plainly that the triune flag arose, not from union under one sovereign, but from legislative union under one Parliament. The Union Jack, therefore, has become the emblem of the British Constitution and the British race. It is now the signal of loyalty to one Sovereign and the existence of Government under British parliamentary union, and, therefore, wherever displayed, it indicates the presence of British liberties and British law.

[CHAPTER XVIII.]

THE JACK AND PARLIAMENTARY UNION IN CANADA.

In addition to its harmony with the story of the union and the growth of the Constitution in the Motherland, the Union Jack has also an interesting connection with the extension of the powers and advantages of the British Constitution in Canada, and particularly with the establishment of responsible parliamentary government among its people.

In 1759, the seeds of the new nationality had been sown upon the Plains of Abraham, where the blood of Wolfe and Montcalm had mingled to enrich the soil, and the power of European France in Canada became merged in the power of England.

The French forefathers of the new subjects of King George II. had come largely from those very portions of old France, whose people had crossed over to England with William the Conqueror, and given the British their King.

As says one of our French Canadian historians:

"The immigration of the French, extending from 1634 to 1720, was almost entirely from among the Normans of Dieppe and Rouen, so that the settled portion of Canada was to all intents and purposes a reproduction of a Norman province. The subsequent settlers were mainly selected in Rochelle, Poictou, Paris and Normandy, to the exclusion of persons from the south and east, and coming out single, they married the daughters of the settled Normans. This accounts for the marked absence of any but the Norman accent and form of speech throughout the French-speaking communities of Canada at the present day."[118]

45. Royal Arms of George II.

Thus the new French-speaking subjects in Canada were only returning in allegiance to the sovereignty of a king whose ancestors had been placed upon the English throne by their own Norman forefathers; upon whose royal arms (45) were displayed the three fleurs-de-lis as sign of his claim, through his ancestors, to the throne of France (14); upon whose crown was the motto in their own French language, "Dieu et Mon Droit,"[119] and who by the retention of old customs still gave his consent to the laws enacted in his British Parliament in the same old Norman phrase, "Le Roi le veult" ("The King wills it"), which had been used by his Norman forefathers.[120]

The French habitant felt how easy was the renewal of the old relationship, and accepted the change in the way so well expressed in his Canadian voyageur patois:

"An' dat was de way we feel, w'en de ole régime's no more, An' de new wan come, but don't change moche; w'y its jus' lak' it be before, Spikin' Francais lak' we alway do, an' de English dey mak' no fuss, An' our law de sam', wall, I don't know me, 'twas better mebbe for us."[121]

There now commenced in Canada an evolution of internal government of the people similar to that which had taken place in the old land of England, but under reversed conditions, beginning here with the incoming of English rule, while there it had commenced with the Norman conquest of England. An eminent French authority[122] has stated his belief that England owed her liberties to her having been conquered by the Normans, and to this we may add the statement of a no less important English author,[123] that "assuredly England was gainer by the conquest." As the advent of Norman rule to England had resulted in such privileges to the English people, so assuredly the cession of Quebec and the introduction of English government into Canada brought equal blessings to the descendants of those selfsame Normans.

The French Canadian found that under his new Union Jack his property was secure. Under the old régime the French Canadian had practically no voice in the government of his country. There was no system of elective municipal government, no freedom for public meetings, all the legislative and executive power, even to its extremest details, being centralized through the Governor and Intendant in the person of the King of France, who was two thousand miles away. Finding his religious faith untrammelled, his freedom unimpaired, his language preserved, the habitant soon settled down without objection to his new sovereignty.

In 1774, the British Parliament passed the Act known as the "Quebec Act," which granted an increased share of local government to the people of the great province comprising all Canada which was then set apart, and the greater portion of which is now within the present Dominion. This measure of self-government still further assured the French-descended Canadians of the protection of their liberties, so that when the English-descended colonists of the thirteen English state colonies to the south of them revolted from their British allegiance in 1775, French Canada stood firm by the British crown. The descendants of the Normans in Canada were true to the government which their forefathers had helped to create in England.

The march of events now brought an additional set of new subjects to the British Constitution as it had then been established in Canada.

The granting of separation to the thirteen United States, in 1783, was followed by the immigration to Canada of those loyal souls whose hearts revolted at the action of their old colonies in taking down the Union Jack, and who refused to separate themselves from the United Empire, in whose ultimate justice they had unwavering faith.

These "United Empire Loyalists" settled mainly in the parts now known as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario. Of the quarter of a million souls who then formed the total population of Canada, about a hundred and forty thousand were of French language and descent, living in the counties adjacent to the St. Lawrence River; and of the forty to fifty thousand Loyalists who, it is estimated, reached the northern colonies during or immediately after the rebellion of 1775, over twenty-five thousand had, by 1786, settled along the western lakes.

Government in Canada had hitherto been conducted by a Governor and a Legislative Council appointed by the Crown, there being no elected representative. A further advance in constitutional self-government was now considered desirable, and the "Constitutional Act of 1791" was passed by the parent Parliament in Great Britain. The ancient Province of Quebec was divided into two provinces, called Lower Canada and Upper Canada, very fairly representing the localities occupied, the one by the older or French-speaking subjects of His Majesty, and the other by the newcoming English-speaking Loyalists, who had followed their old flag into the forests of the northland.

This Act of 1791 gave the right of Parliamentary government to the people of Canada. A Legislative Council and a House of Assembly were created for each Province, the members of the latter house being elected by the votes of people in the counties and towns of each.

The Legislature of Upper Canada held its first session at Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) in 1792, summoned, as said Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe in his opening speech, "Under the authority of an Act of Parliament of Great Britain, passed in the last year, which has established the British Constitution in this distant country." To this he added:

"The wisdom and beneficence of our Most Gracious Sovereign and the British Parliament have been eminently proved not only in imparting to us the same form of government, but in securing the benefit of the many provisions which guard this memorable Act, so that the blessings of our invulnerable constitution, we hope, will be extended to the remotest posterity."

As a sign of this self-government under the British Crown, the King issued his warrant from the Court of St. James on March 4th, 1792, authorizing a "Great Seal for the Province of Upper Canada," to be used in sealing all public instruments. The engraving (46), which is a photo reproduction of the seal attached to the Crown Patent of a grant of one hundred acres of land near Port Hope, Upper Canada, made to a U. E. Loyalist, shows the details of the design, being, as described in the royal warrant, "an anchor and sword crossed on a calumet of peace, encircled by a wreath of olives, surmounted by an imperial crown and the Union of Great Britain."

46. The Great Seal of Upper Canada, 1792.

This "Union," which will be seen in the upper right-hand corner of the seal, was the Union Jack of Queen Anne.

The United Empire Loyalists sought their loved two-crossed Union Jack in Canada. They found it not only flying on the flagstaff, but also impressed on the seals of the Grants of land which were made to them in recognition of their loyalty. On these it came to them as a sign of the surety of their legal rights under British law and their full protection under the administration of British justice.

The introduction of this Union Jack had been the result of an Act passed by the British Parliament, that "mother of parliaments," which continues to this day to have vested in it the ultimate political sovereignty of every local Parliament which it has created.

This Union Jack on the Great Seal is in this way the emblem of parliamentary union between Great Britain and Canada, and the sign of the spread of British constitutional government to the continent of America.

But the French Canadian has also an interest in this same Great Seal, for on its reverse side it bore the royal coat-of-arms of the reigning sovereign, and in this were still shown the three lilies of France, in the same way as in the arms of his predecessor, George II. (45). What the Union Jack on the one side was to the English-speaking Canadian, the "fleurs-de-lis" on the other was to the French-Canadian—a visible sign of his own personal connection with the glories of his forefathers, and the evidence of his glad allegiance to the Sovereign whose connection with the ancient realm of France was represented by these emblems, and with whose realm he was now reunited.

In drawings of the arms of the Province of Ontario (the new name given to the Province of Upper Canada at the time of Confederation, in 1867), the Jack has frequently been shown as containing three crosses. A reference to the impressions made by the seal itself upon the great pieces of white wax, four and a half inches broad by three-quarters of an inch in thickness, which were attached by bands of parchment or of tape to the official documents, shows, as is seen in the photograph, that the "Union" contained two crosses only, namely, the cross of St. George and the cross of St. Andrew.

This Union Jack of 1707 was also shown in the arms of the Department of Education of Upper Canada, from 1844 to 1876, during the régime of Dr. Ryerson as Superintendent. In these the design was the same as on the Great Seal, but the Union Jack was removed from the upper corner and placed upon a shield in the centre, upon which the two crosses of Queen Anne are plainly shown.

In earlier stained glass windows placed in the Normal School, Toronto, the head offices of the Department of Education of Ontario, the three-crossed flag had been shown, but this, on the suggestion of the writer, has been corrected in the new windows placed in the library in 1896.

A further adoption of the national emblem is shown in the design on the early currency, which was coined for use in the Province. The "penny" of the Bank of Upper Canada (47) shows on the one side St. George and the dragon, and on the other the arms of the Great Seal, having on it the Union Jack,[124] which good national emblem, no doubt, made the money that the Canadian Loyalist earned more acceptable to him. These must have been happy reminders to the patriot, for on the coins which passed current among his people, and on the seal of the deed of the grant of land which his Loyalist father or himself had received for his new home, was the imprint of the old Union Jack, placed there by an Act of the Union Parliament of Great Britain, as the sign of his parliamentary union with that United Empire which ever commanded his allegiance.

47. Upper Canada Penny.

[CHAPTER XIX.]

THE UNION JACK OF GEORGE III., 1801.

THE PRESENT UNION JACK.

We come now to the formation of the first, and present, three-crossed Jack, the "Red, White and Blue," of story and of song, being the third Union Jack.

For forty years King George III. had reigned as King of Great Britain and Ireland. The Union Parliament, created under Queen Anne, had administered the affairs of England and of Scotland, but the Parliament of Ireland had continued meeting separately, and the two-crossed Union Jack of 1707 had been the only Union Jack authorized to be raised in the British realm. In the forty-first year of the King's reign an Act was passed in the Parliament of Ireland, whereby it became, as had the Parliaments of the two other kingdoms, incorporated in the one Union Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. As previously, so now again the Parliamentary and completed union of the kingdoms having been arrived at, the Irish Jack was directed to be joined with the Jacks of England and Scotland.

The same deliberate procedure for making an alteration in the Union flag was followed as under Queen Anne: First, an Act of Parliament creating a further union, the call of the Sovereign as the supreme head of the nations, the appointment of a Committee of the Privy Council to consider the drafts of the changes to be made, then an Order in Council, and, finally, the issue of a proclamation by the King.

The record[125] states: "On the 5th November, 1800, the King in Council was pleased to approve the report of a Committee of the Privy Council, that the Union Flag should be altered according to the draft marked 'C,' in which the cross of St. George is conjoined with the crosses of St. Andrew and St. Patrick."

48. Draft "C" of Union Jack, 1800.

This draft "C" (48) was duly transmitted to the College of Arms, London, and an exact tracing of it as recorded in the books of the college has been made.[126]

The designers of this new Union Jack of 1801 had this time to join three flags together, instead of, as in 1707, only joining two; the problem set before them being the union of the three national Jacks of the sister nations into one grand Union Jack (Pl. [V.], fig. 3).

The three flags now to be formed into one Union flag were the incoming Irish Jack, having a red diagonal saltire cross and white ground, to be joined with the "white crosse, commonly called St. Andrew's crosse,"[127] of Scotland, with its blue ground, and the "Jack white with a red cross, commonly called St. George's cross"[128] of England, with its white ground.

The latter two had already been joined in the Union Jack of 1707. The draft "C" (48) gives the method in which the designers proposed the three flags should be combined, and the proportions to be given to each in the new flag, which then received the approval of the King in Council.

Thereafter, on January 1st, 1801, King George III. issued his Royal proclamation from St. James' Palace, declaring His Majesty's pleasure concerning the Royal style and titles appertaining to the Imperial crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and its dependencies, and also the ensigns armorial, flags and banners thereof.

The clause respecting the Royal coat-of-arms states:

"And that the arms or ensigns armorial of the said United Kingdoms shall be quarterly; first and fourth England, second Scotland, third Ireland; and it is our will and pleasure that there shall be borne therewith on an escutcheon of pretence the arms of our Dominions in Germany."

The result of this clause was that the lilies of France, which had been quartered in the Royal arms since Edward III., 1327, were altogether removed, and the whole four quarters were appropriated—two quarters to the three golden lions of England, and one quarter each to the red lion of Scotland and the golden harp of Ireland—and upon a shield on the centre was to be placed the arms and white horse of Hanover, to indicate the other countries over which the King also reigned (49).

49. Royal Arms of George III., 1801.

The next clause refers to the Royal Standard or flag of the sovereign:

"... And it is our will and pleasure that the standard of the said united kingdoms shall be the same quarterings as are hereinbefore declared to be the arms or ensigns armorial of the said united kingdoms...."

Although the Royal arms contained a recognition of the King's Hanoverian kingdom, the flag to be used as the "Royal Standard" is ordered to have on it only the arms of the three united kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland.

In the clause of this proclamation the Union flag (50), which had already been designed and approved, was described as follows:

"And that the union flag shall be azure, the crosses saltires of St. Andrew and St. Patrick, quarterly per saltire counterchanged, argent and gules; the latter fimbriated of the second, surmounted by the cross of St. George of the third fimbriated as the saltire."

This description defines, with respect to the crosses, that the white cross of Scotland and the red cross of Ireland were joined together quarterly and "counterchanged" and that the red cross of St. George is to "surmount"—that is, to be laid upon the surface of them both. With respect to the grounds of the flag, it is described as being blue, and that the cross of St. George is "fimbriated as the saltire." Much, and almost continuous, controversy early arose upon this heraldic description of the Union flag, particularly with respect to the proportion of the crosses, and specially to the width of the white border to the St. George.

50. Union Jack of George III., 1801.

It is to be remembered that heraldry does not, except when specifically given, deal with exact dimensions, but gives the general appearance and particular colourings of the shield or banner. If, as in this case, the arrangement of the flag selected may have been in the opinion of some of the heraldically inclined, "an extraordinary amalgamation,"[129] and by others not made in accord with the heraldic "blazon" or description given of it in the proclamation, yet this division of its parts is not to be attributed to the "officers of arms" of that day, for it has been expressly put on record that "in this allotment they were not allowed the exercise of their own judgment."[130] Suggestions have constantly since been made that the forms in the flag should be changed, because, as is reiterated, "the guide to all heraldic devices is the verbal blazon of the heralds," and with this, they say, the flag does not agree, for the saltire crosses do not bear the appearance of having been "counterchanged"—that is, alternated, share and share alike; and that the "fimbriation" to the red cross of St. George is wider than an "heraldic fimbriation," which on an heraldic shield is only a very narrow edging or border for the purpose of separating one colour from another.

These are objections arising only from the wording of the "blazon" and not from the flag itself; to the description given of it and not to the design.

We have seen that, both in 1707 and in 1801, the changes made in the "Union Jacks" proceeded by a regular and formal progression of, consideration by Sovereign, Committee of Enquiry, Order in Council and registration of the drafts of design then selected and approved, and the promulgation of the Royal proclamation for its use.

The design of the flags preceded the blazon, or description given of them in the proclamations. We must, therefore, refer to the flags themselves as the guide to their proportions and to the intentions of their designers.

It does not appear that any "draft" of the first flag of James I., 1606, was fyled, but a formal proclamation authorizing it was made by the King "according to the form made by our heralds."

On reference to the "Draft C, 1707," of Queen Anne, for the conjoining of the two flags, it will be noted that the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew are of equal width, and that the white border to the St. George is one-third of the width of either of the crosses. The red and white crosses of the two national flags are thus represented, and the whole of the "crosse-flags" by the blue ground of the Scottish flag in the angles, and the white ground of the English flag in the broad white border.

Queen Anne and her Councillors had in mind the union of the two nations, but there was no "verbal blazon" made or issued, the order being that "the flaggs be according to the 'Draft marked C,'" and as "shown on the margent" of the proclamation.

This authorized Union Jack of 1707 was the basis upon which the designers of George III. began when, in 1800, they were instructed to conjoin the cross of St. Patrick, which was to be added to the union flag.

Comparison of the "Draft marked C, 1800," shows that the broad white border of St. George is retained of the same width as in the "Draft C, 1707," being approximately one-third of the width of the red cross of St. George and of the saltire cross, both of which remain of the same size as previously. The form authorized by the Order in Council of 1707 was adopted and repeated by the Order in Council of 1800.

In the bringing in of the additional red saltire cross of Ireland, the diagonal space previously allotted in "Draft C, 1707," to a saltire cross is now equally divided between the white and the red saltire crosses of the kingdoms, and to give them equal recognition and honour, the edging of white necessary to separate the red saltire of St. Patrick from the blue ground of the flag is taken from its own half of the diagonal space allotted to it instead of from the Scotland's blue, and this was duly balanced by the retention of the full broad white border space around the St. George, which in the new flag represented both the white grounds of the St. Patrick and the St. George, as the blue ground did that of St. Andrew's flag.

Thus the intentions of the designers of 1707 were followed, confirmed and extended by the designers of 1800. The drafts and orders in Council issued in pursuance of them are the authority which must be recognized in the making of the flag, and not the interpretation of a description or "blazon" given of it in the proclamation issued after the Union Jack had already been approved and adopted.

It has been said that the wording of the blazon, "the cross of St. George fimbriated as the saltire," is to be taken as indicating the "width" as well as the "colour" of the fimbriation, and that, therefore, it should be reduced to a narrow heraldic edging. Others consider that as heraldry does not deal with sizes as exact dimensions, the wording means simply, "of the same colour as the saltire," and has no reference to the width, and some criticisms have described the "blazon" as being "very obscure."[131]

In consequence of these interpretations, proposals have, at times, been made for altering the Union Jack, "so as to bring it more into accordance with the blazon and with heraldic rules," but as has been well said, "flag making is not pure heraldry; it is affected by considerations of symmetry, proportion and in no small measure of usage and prescription."[132]

Our Union Jack, in its present form, has unquestionably been made as it was ordered to be made in 1707 and in 1800, and proclaimed in 1801, whether the description in the proclamation be correctly expressed or not.

But in addition to the general form of the design, as given in the "Draft C, 1800," there were also detailed regulations issued for the making of the flag, which are the same as the rules prescribed by the Admiralty of the present day[133] for the several proportions of the Union Jack as always and now issued.

From these regulations it is clearly evident that the recognition which the white ground of St. George's Jack had been given in the flag of 1707 was intended to be continued. While the pattern drafts of the Councils were of square form, the Admiralty adopted a longer form, as "the practice has been, in regard to the dimensions of flags generally, to make the length twice the breadth at the head." This is the usual length adopted for flags which are not square, although the flag of an admiral, which is the old English St. George, still continues to be one and a half times as long as it is broad.

The dimensions are given in full detail in the regulations.

An outline drawing (51) of the flag of the same form as the Admiralty pattern is given for convenience of reference. The proportions of the several crosses and borders are directed in the regulations to be made according to the measurement called the "width of the flag," being the measurement on the "halliard" or "hoist," which is the side next to the flagstaff, and are as follows:

Regulations for the Sizes of the Parts of the Union Jack,

Whether square or oblong, in which latter case the length to be twice as long as the width.

The paramount cross of St. George is to be one-fifth of the width of the flag on the flagstaff, and its width is made the factor by which the measurements of all the other parts are to be regulated in flags of varying sizes.

The crosses of the two other Jacks, which were to be joined, are each allotted a proportion of one-third the width of the cross of St. George.

The divisions of the parts for the Irish Jack are stated separately, being one-third for the red cross of St. Patrick, and one-sixth for its white border; the two measurements, when added together, amounting to a proportion of one-half.

The proportion of one-half allotted to the "broad white of St. Andrew" comprises the due share of one-third for the Scotch cross, and one-sixth for its border, being an exact equality to the proportions given to the Irish cross and its border.

51. Outline Jack—The Proper Proportions of the Crosses.

(From a photograph taken at the spot.)

At first sight it would appear that the "broad white of St. Andrew" was given a larger proportion of the flag, but the measurements of the "cross" and its "border" of the Scotch Jack are stated in one figure, because their colours are the same, while those of the Irish Jack are given separately, because the colours are different, the cross being red and its border white.

The saltire space of the Union Jack of Queen Anne has been divided equally, and the national banners of St. Patrick and St. Andrew are thus given each a proportion of one-third for its CROSS and one-sixth for its BORDER or "fimbriation."

The description given in the "blazon" respecting the red cross of St. George, stated that it was "fimbriated as the saltire." The regulations defined this as "for the white border to the cross of St. George," and there was allotted, not simply a one-sixth proportion due a "fimbriation," but the full proportion of one-third, equal to that of a national cross, and in this way the white border to the cross of St. George is as wide as the cross of each of the other nations.

The width of the border cannot this time, as was said of the change of 1707, be the result of the "carelessness of a draughtsman,"[134] for it is made with premeditated carefulness, and, more than that, the measurements are set down in exact figures. Thus the reason for the broadening of the border in the flag of 1707 has been justified by the flag of 1801 and its authority confirmed.

This broad white border, given to surround the red cross of St. George, is not only the formal recognition of the white ground of the English Jack, which had been placed in the flag of 1707, but it is also a recognition of the white ground of the Irish Jack, which was now for the first time entering the Union Jack, so that the broad border in the flag of 1801 represents the grounds of two national Jacks.

The practical proportions of the pattern drafts are thus fully carried out in the Admiralty pattern. Some twenty years ago the Garter King of Arms had his attention drawn to the Admiralty flag as used in the navy, and he was asked to suggest an alteration. He declined, because, he said, "the flag was made according to the drawing, and it was exhibited in the same way on the colours of the Queen's Infantry Regiments."

It is a serious thing to deface or alter the national flag of a nation, and if any changes have been made in any individual instances they are the result of error, and have not been made with such paramount authority of Sovereign, Parliament and Council, as have been the Union Jacks of Queen Anne and King George III.

In this Union Jack of 1801 we have, then, plainly displayed a complete representation of the three separate crosses, and of the white and blue grounds of the three national Jacks which were then combined together to form our Union Jack.

Since 1801 no change had been made in this Union Jack of George III., which was the first three-crossed Jack of its race, and is our present Union Jack.

From 1801 onward dates this glorious flag, in which all three nations are represented. It was born when the power of Great Britain seemed almost wrecked. Reverses had accumulated upon her. In America many of her possessions among the West Indies and on the surrounding coasts[135] had been wrested from her flag, and thirteen of her longest established and most populous colonies, becoming the United States, and aided by men, money and fleet from the French in Europe, had revolted from her sway and abandoned their allegiance. In Europe the nations of France, Spain and Holland were united in arms against her, and she was battling almost single-handed against the power of the great Napoleon; yet, undaunted by these trials, the sons of the united nation ran their new Union Jack up aloft, and started out to frame that marvellous career which it has since achieved.

"For England's courage flames The fiercest in defeat, And in the day she stands at bay Most dangerous to meet."[136]

This third Union Jack flew at Aboukir when Abercrombie drove Napoleon out of Egypt; with it were won the triumphs of Wellington, from Assaye in India, through Badajoz and Spain, to the crowning victory at Waterloo. It was the flag which floated in the "white ensign" on all the ships at Trafalgar,[137] and on the Victory when Nelson sent aloft his British watchword:

"England expects every man will do his duty."

The halo of that signal shone around it at Balaclava, when the heroes of the valley-charge proved it was

"Theirs not to reason why, Theirs not to make reply; Theirs but to do and die";

and again above the Birkenhead, at sea, when five hundred steadfast men went down beneath its folds, inspired by its duty-call.

52. The Union Jack and Shackleton at Farthest South.

(From a photograph taken at the spot.)

In Africa, Melville and Coghill wrapped it around their bodies at Isandula, and won death to save it from the foe; for it the forty mounted riflemen of Matabeleland died in their tracks, singing "God Save the Queen," and yet again at the call of the race the sons of the Flag from all around the world hastened to help it to hold its own upon the veldt.

On the continent of America the impetuous Brock, facing enormous odds, and leading his Canadian volunteers in defence of their native land, gave up his life for it on the cedar-clad slopes of Queenston Heights, and beneath it the French Canadians of Beauharnois knelt on the battlefield, and rising, won, with the brave De Salaberry as their leader, the victory of glorious Chateauguay.[138]

It was carried far to the Arctic north by Sir John Franklin, in 1846, and in October, 1908, Shackleton planted this ancient Union Jack, with all its crosses and broad white border,[139] upon the farthest Antarctic south (52).

Such a flag with such a history should be held sacred and inviolable.

[CHAPTER XX.]

THE LESSONS OF THE CROSSES.

The combinations of the Jacks have at length been completed, and the three crosses placed together in the one flag of 1801.

If some of the heralds are not entirely satisfied with the way the divisions are made, due honour has at least been done to each of the Jacks of the three kingdoms, while at the same time the historical value of the "Union" has been greatly enhanced, and its beauty as a flag most certainly increased. If the object of heraldry is the teaching of lessons by the combinations of colour and of forms, then the flag as made is yet more heraldically successful.

In the heraldic and traditional interpretations of colours, red indicates courage, white is the emblem of purity, and blue the emblem of truth.

"Red, white and blue, Brave, pure and true."

By this better and more equal division of the colours in the flag much additional emphasis is given to the story which those colours tell.

Lessons are taught which may be deeply impressed upon the minds of our children, so that by reading the history of their nation in its folds they may endeavour to live lives worthy of the ideals of their national flag, and frame their own characters and the character of their empire by its lofty teachings.

That it is a beautiful and easily distinguished flag is admitted on all hands, but it has the still further quality, of immeasurable value in a national flag, that its parts and colours tell the history of the nation whose emblem it is. To those who have acquainted themselves with the story of the three separate national flags, the Union Jack, with its three crosses, its broad white borders and eight blue triangles, tells the story of the influences under which the present Empire has been built up by the three kingdoms which were combined to make it.

Laid broadly upon the whole combination, and "surmounting" it, and also forming the basis for all its measurements, is the plain red cross of St. George, indicating, in such a way as the simplest mind can understand, the leading part which the English nation has taken in the creation of the Union, and the powerful position which it holds in its councils.

Under this cross, and supporting it, are the white and red crosses of the two junior nations, which are themselves, in their turn, supported on the white and blue grounds, which form the basis foundations of the flag, the whole being embraced and bound together by the broadspread arms of the plain red cross.

Thus clearly does the position of the crosses and their grounds teach the vivid lesson of how the three sister nations, supporting each other, are all united by Courage in building their realm upon the sure foundations of Purity and Truth.

The position of the red cross of St. George, in front and full view, tells plainly how England was the first of the nations to enter the lists and lead the way in acquiring the glories of the Empire.

Another lesson there is which the crosses also plainly tell respecting the relations between the Scotch and Irish nations themselves.

The flag is divided by the cross of St. George into four quarters, in all of which the saltire crosses of St. Andrew and St. Patrick, as the heraldic blazon of the proclamation says, are "quarterly per saltire counterchanged."

Discussions have arisen between heraldic experts as to whether the descriptive word in the blazon should be "countercharged" or "counterchanged." The latter is the word given in this proclamation, and although at first sight it looks as though the red cross only had been "charged"—that is, been placed upon the original white diagonal cross—it is to be remembered that the saltire cross has been equally divided between the two nations.

It will be noted that the broad white of the cross of Scotland occupies the higher position in the first and third quarters, which are next the flagstaff, and the red cross of Ireland is in the higher position in the second and fourth, which are the quarters at the end or fly of the flag; the relative position of the Irish and Scotch crosses, as they are placed in the first and third quarters, are reversed in the second and fourth quarters; that is to say, the positions of the crosses are alternately changed about, or "counterchanged."

The quarters of the flag next the flagstaff are considered to be of higher importance than the others, and in these more important quarters the cross of St. Andrew and its border is thus given precedence over the red cross of St. Patrick and its border.

The lesson intended to be taught by the position of the crosses is plain. The kingdom of Scotland had entered into the union with England before the kingdom of Ireland, and, therefore, as being the senior, the white cross of St. Andrew is given the precedence over the red cross of St. Patrick, but this, in its turn, is given the upper position in the remaining quarters.

The utmost care must, therefore, be taken to see that the Union Jack is correctly raised on the flagstaff, with the broad white of the St. Andrew uppermost.

When the Red Ensign, or any similarly quartered flag, is reversed on the flagstaff—that is to say, displayed with the Union down—it becomes a signal of distress. Union Jacks are often seen hoisted upside down (Pl. [VII.], fig. 1). No more distressing act can be done to the Union Jack than to thus carelessly reverse its crosses by putting the wrong end next the staff, with the broad white saltire down, nor greater indignity be done to its supporters than by thus reversing the correct positions of their national Jacks.

Flags are sometimes to be seen (Pl. [VII.], fig. 2) in which the white border around the red cross of St. George is reduced to the same narrow size as the border of St. Patrick, and thus the white ground of the Jacks of England and Ireland has been wiped out.

PLATE VII

Still more often the red cross of St. Patrick is set full in the centre of the diagonal cross, and thus the cross of St. Andrew is completely expunged, for its white is reduced to only two narrow white margins on both sides of the Irish red cross. The broad white of St. Andrew has thus been entirely lost. (Pl. [VII.], fig. 2).

Such errors as have been mentioned cannot be too greatly lamented, or be too carefully avoided, for by them dishonour is done to the memory of the nations whose prowess has ennobled their national emblems, and the beautiful story of the Union Jack is utterly marred; for the positions of the crosses and borders cease to tell the consecutive history of the empire nation whose combined union emblem they form.

In Pl. [VII.], fig. 3, a further error will be noted, that the opposite ends of the combined saltires are not in continuous line with one another, as in the correctly made Jack (Pl. [V.], fig. 3). This has occurred from the centre lines of the combined saltires having been drawn directly from the inner corners of St. George to the outer corners of the oblong flag.

We have seen that as the space of the one saltire of 1707 was to be divided equally between the two saltires of 1801, the two ends of the saltire should be in line, and the division run equally through the centre.

53. Square Union Jack.

In view of these errors it may be well to give some simple instructions by which the flags may always be correctly made, and which are in accordance with the Admiralty regulations.

Union Jacks must be made either square (53), or oblong (54), in which latter shape the length must always be twice the width on the staff.

54. Oblong Union Jack.