The Flags of the World: Their History, Blazonry, and Associations

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Flags of the World, by F. Edward Hulme

THE FLAGS OF THE WORLD:
THEIR HISTORY,
BLAZONRY, AND ASSOCIATIONS.

THE
Flags of The World:

THEIR HISTORY,
BLAZONRY, AND ASSOCIATIONS.

FROM THE
BANNER OF THE CRUSADER TO THE BURGEE OF THE YACHTSMAN;
FLAGS NATIONAL, COLONIAL, PERSONAL;
THE ENSIGNS OF MIGHTY EMPIRES;
THE SYMBOLS OF LOST CAUSES.

BY
F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A.,
Author of
"Familiar Wild Flowers," "History, Principles and Practice of Heraldry,"
"Birth and Development of Ornament," &c., &c.

LONDON:
FREDERICK WARNE & CO.,
AND NEW YORK
[All rights reserved.]

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

THE FLAGS OF THE WORLD.

CHAPTER I.

The necessity of some special Sign to distinguish Individuals, Tribes, and Nations—the Standards of Antiquity—Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman—the Vexillum—The Labarum of Constantine—Invocation of Religion—the Flags of the Enemy—Early Flags of Religious Character—Flags of Saints at Funeral Obsequies—Company and Guild Flags of the Mediæval Period—Political Colours—Various kinds of Flags—the Banner—Rolls of Arms—Roll of Karlaverok—The Flag called the Royal Standard is really the Royal Banner—Mainsail Banners—Trumpet Banners—Ladies embroidering Banners for the Cause—Knights' Banneret—Form of Investiture—the Standard—the Percy Badges and Motto—Arctic Sledge-flags—the Rank governing the size of the Standard—Standards at State Funerals—the Pennon—Knights-Pennonciers—the Pennoncelle—Mr. Rolt as Chief Mourner—Lord Mayor's Show—the Pennant—the Streamer—Tudor Badges—Livery Colours—the Guidon—Bunting—Flag Devising a Branch of Heraldry—Colours chiefly used in Flags—Flags bearing Inscriptions—Significance of the Red Flag—of the Yellow—of the White—of the Black—Dipping the Flag—the Sovereignty of the Sea—Right of Salute insisted on—Political Changes rendering Flags obsolete.

So soon as man passes from the lowest stage of barbarism the necessity for some special sign, distinguishing man from man, tribe from tribe, nation from nation, makes itself felt; and this prime necessity once met, around the symbol chosen spirit-stirring memories quickly gather that endear it, and make it the emblem of the power and dignity of those by whom it is borne. The painted semblance of grizzly bear, or beaver, or rattlesnake on the canvas walls of the tepi of the prairie Brave, the special chequering of colours that compose the tartan[^[1]] of the Highland clansman, are examples of this; and as we pass from individual or local tribe to mighty nations, the same influence is still at work, and the distinctive Union Flag of Britain, the tricolor of France, the gold and scarlet bars of the flag of Spain, all alike appeal with irresistible force to the patriotism of those born beneath their folds, and speak to them of the glories and greatness of the historic past, the duties of the present, and the hopes of the future—inspiring those who gaze upon their proud blazonry with the determination to be no unworthy sons of their fathers, but to live, and if need be to die, for the dear home-land of which these are the symbol.

The standards used by the nations of antiquity differed in nature from the flags that in mediæval and modern days have taken their place. These earlier symbols were ordinary devices wrought in metal, and carried at the head of poles or spears. Thus the hosts of Egypt marched to war beneath the shadow of the various sacred animals that typified their deities, or the fan-like arrangement of feathers that symbolised the majesty of Pharoah, while the Assyrian standards, to be readily seen represented on the slabs from the palaces of Khorsabad and Kyonjik, in the British Museum and elsewhere, were circular disks of metal containing various distinctive devices. Both these and the Egyptian standards often have in addition a small flag-like streamer attached to the staff immediately below the device. The Greeks in like manner employed the Owl of Athene, and such-like religious and patriotic symbols of the protection of the deities, though Homer, it will be remembered, makes Agamemnon use a piece of purple cloth as a rallying point for his followers. The sculptures of Persepolis show us that the Persians adopted the figure of the Sun, the eagle, and the like. In Rome a hand erect, or the figures of the horse, wolf, and other animals were used, but at a later period the eagle alone was employed. Pliny tells us that "Caius Marius in his second consulship ordained that the Roman legions should only have the Eagle for their standard. For before that time the Eagle marched foremost with four others, wolves, minatours, horses, and bears—each one in its proper order. Not many years past the Eagle alone began to be advanced in battle, and the rest were left behind in the camp. But Marius rejected them altogether, and since this it is observed that scarcely is there a camp of a Legion wintered at any time without having a pair of Eagles." The eagle, we need scarcely stay to point out, obtained this pre-eminence as being the bird of Jove. The Vexillum, or cavalry flag, was, according to Livy, a square piece of cloth fixed to a cross bar at the end of a spear; this was often richly fringed, and was either plain or bore certain devices upon it, and was strictly and properly a flag. The ensigns which distinguished the allied forces from the legions of the Romans were also of this character. Examples of these vexilla may be seen on the sculptured columns of Trajan and Antoninus, the arch of Titus, and upon various coins and medals of ancient Rome.

The Imperial Standard or Labarum carried before Constantine and his successors resembled the cavalry Vexillum.[^[2]] It was of purple silk, richly embroidered with gold, and though ordinarily

suspended from a horizontal cross-bar, was occasionally displayed in accordance with our modern usage by attachment by one of its sides to the staff.

The Roman standards were guarded with religious veneration in the temples of the metropolis and of the chief cities of the Empire, and modern practice has followed herein the ancient precedent. As in classic days the protection of Jove was invoked, so in later days the blessing of Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, has been sought. At the presentation of colours to a regiment a solemn service of prayer and praise is held, and when these colours return in honour, shot-rent from victorious conflict, they are reverently placed in stately abbey, venerable cathedral, or parish church, never more to issue from the peace and rest of the home of God until by lapse of years they crumble into indistinguishable dust.

The Israelites carried the sacred standard of the Maccabees, with the initial letters of the Hebrew text, "Who is like unto Thee, O God, amongst the gods?" The Emperor Constantine caused the sacred monogram of Christ to be placed on the Labarum, and when the armies of Christendom went forth to rescue the Holy Land from the infidel they received their cross-embroidered standards from the foot of the altar. Pope Alexander II. sent a consecrated white banner to Duke William previous to his expedition against Harold, and we read in the "Beehive of the Romish Church," published in 1580, how "the Spaniardes christen, conjure, and hallow their Ensignes, naming one Barbara, another Katherine," after the names of saints whose aid they invoked in the stress of battle. We may see this invocation again very well in Figs. [147], [148]: flags borne by the colonists of Massachusetts when they arrayed themselves against the mercenaries of King George, and appealed to the God of Battles in behalf of the freedom and justice denied by those who bore rule over them.

This recognition of the King of kings has led also to the captured banners of the enemy being solemnly suspended in gratitude and thanksgiving in the house of God. Thus Speed tells us that on the dispersal and defeat of the Armada, Queen Elizabeth commanded solemn thanksgiving to be celebrated at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul's, in her chief city of London, which accordingly was done upon Sunday, the 8th of September, when eleven of the Spanish ensigns were hung, to the great joy of the beholders, as "psalmes of praise" for England's deliverance from sore peril. Very appropriately, too, in the Chapel of the Royal College at Chelsea, the home of the old soldiers who helped to win them, hang the flags taken at Barrosa, Martinique, Bhurtpore, Seringapatam, Salamanca, Waterloo, and many another hard-fought struggle;

and thus, in like manner, is the tomb of Napoleon I., in Paris, surrounded by trophies of captured flags. On March 30th, 1814, the evening before the entry of the Allies into Paris, about 1,500 flags—the victorious trophies of Napoleon—were burnt in the Court of the Eglise des Invalides, to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy.

Early flags were almost purely of a religious character.[^[3]] The first notice of banners in England is in Bede's description of the interview between the heathen King Ethelbert and Augustine, the missionary from Rome, where the followers of the latter are described as bearing banners on which were displayed silver crosses; and we need scarcely pause to point out that in Roman Catholic countries, where the ritual is emotional and sensuous, banners of this type are still largely employed to add to the pomp of religious processions. Heraldic and political devices upon flags are of later date, and even when these came freely into use their presence did not supplant the ecclesiastical symbols. The national banner of England for centuries—the ruddy cross of her patron Saint George (Fig. [91])—was a religious one, and, whatever other banners were carried, this was ever foremost in the field. The Royal banner of Great Britain and Ireland that we see in Fig. [44], in its rich blazonry of the lions of England and Scotland and the Irish harp, is a good example of the heraldic flag, while our Union flag (Fig. [90]), equally symbolizes the three nations of the United Kingdom, but this time by the allied crosses of the three patron saints, St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick, and it is therefore a lineal descendant and exemplar of the religious influence that was once all-powerful.

The ecclesiastical flags were often purely pictorial in character, being actual representations of the Persons of the Trinity, of the Virgin Mother, or of divers saints. At other times the monasteries and other religious houses bore banners of heraldic character; as the leading ecclesiastics were both lords temporal and lords spiritual, taking their places in the ranks of fighting men and leading on the field the body of dependants and retainers that they were required to maintain in aid of the national defence. In such case

the distinguishing banner of the contingent conformed in character to the heraldic cognisances of the other nobles in the host. Fig. [77], for instance, was the banner of St. Alban's Abbey. In a poem on the capture of Rouen by the English, in the year 1418, written by an eye-witness of the scenes described, we read how the English commander—

"To the Castelle firste he rode

And sythen the citie all abrode,

Lengthe and brede he it mette

And riche baneres up he sette

Upon the Porte Seint Hillare

A Baner of the Trynyte;

And at Porte Kaux he sette evene

A Baner of the Quene of Heven;

And at Porte Martvile he upplyt

Of Seint George a Baner breight."

and not until this recognition of Divine and saintly aid was made did

"He sette upon the Castelle to stonde

The armys of Fraunce and Englond."

Henry V., at Agincourt, in like manner displayed at his headquarters on the field not only his own arms, but, in place of special honour and prominence, the banners of the Trinity, of St. George, and of St. Edward. These banners of religious significance were often borne from the monasteries to the field of battle, while monks and priests in attendance on them invoked the aid of Heaven during the strife. In an old statement of accounts, still existing, we read that Edward I. made a payment of 8½d. a day to a priest of Beverley for carrying throughout one of his campaigns a banner bearing the figure of St. John. St. Wilfred's banner from Ripon, together with this banner of St. John from Beverley, were brought on to the field at Northallerton; the flag of St. Denis was carried in the armies of St. Louis and of Philip le Bel, and the banner of St. Cuthbert of Durham was borrowed by the Earl of Surrey in his expedition against Scotland in the reign of Henry VIII. This banner had the valuable reputation of securing victory to those who fought under it. It was suspended from a horizontal bar below a spear head, and was a yard or so in breadth and a little more than this in depth; the bottom edge had five deep indentations. The banner was of red velvet sumptuously enriched with gold embroidery, and in the centre was a piece of white velvet, half a yard square, having a cross of red velvet upon it. This central portion covered and protected a relic of the saint. The victory of Neville's Cross, October 17th, 1346, was held to be largely

due to the presence of this sacred banner, and the triumph at Flodden was also ascribed to it.

During the prevalence of Roman Catholicism in England, we find that banners of religious type entered largely into the funeral obsequies of persons of distinction: thus at the burial of Arthur, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII., we find a banner of the Trinity, another with the cross and instruments of the Passion depicted upon it; another of the Virgin Mary, and yet another with a representation of St. George. Such banners, as in the present instance, were ordinarily four in number, and carried immediately round the body at the four corners of the bier. Thus we read in the diary of an old chronicler, Machyn, who lived in the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, that at the burial of the Countess of Arundel, October 27th, 1557, "cam iiij herroldes in ther cotes of armes, and bare iiij baners of emages at the iiij corners." Again, on "Aprell xxix, 1554, was bered my Lady Dudley in Saint Margarett in Westminster, with iiij baners of emages." Another item deals with the funeral of the Duchess of Northumberland, and here again "the iiij baners of ymages" again recur. Anyone having the old records, church inventories, and the like before them, would find it easy enough, as easy as needless, to multiply illustrations of this funeral use of pictured banners. These "emages" or "ymages" of old Machyn are of course not images in the sense of sculptured or carved things, but are painted and embroidered representations of various saints. Machyn, as a greatly interested looker-on at all the spectacles of his day, is most entertaining, but his spelling, according to the severer notions of the present day, is a little weak, as, for instance, in the following words that we have culled at random from his pages:—prossessyon, gaffelyns, fezyssyoun, dysquyet, neckclygens, gorgyusle, berehyng, wypyd, pelere, artelere, and dyssys of spyssys. The context ordinarily makes the meaning clear, but as our readers have not that advantage, we give the same words according to modern orthography—procession, javelins, physician, disquiet, negligence, gorgeously, burying, whipped, pillory, artillery, dishes of spices.

The various companies and guilds of the mediæval period had their special flags that came out, as do those of their successors of the present day, on the various occasions of civic pageantry; and in many cases, as may be seen in the illuminated MSS. in the British Museum and elsewhere, they were carried to battle as the insignia of the companies of men provided at the expense of those corporations. Thus in one example that has come under our notice we see a banner bearing a chevron between hammer, trowels, and builder's square; in another between an axe and two pairs of compasses, while a third on its azure field bears a pair of golden

shears. In the representation of a battle between Philip d'Artevelde and the Flemings against the French, many of the flags therein introduced bear the most extraordinary devices, boots and shoes, drinking-vessels, anvils, and the like, that owe their presence there to the fact that various trade guilds sent their contingents of men to the fight. In a French work on mediæval guilds we find the candle-makers of Bayeux marching beneath a black banner with three white candles on it, the locksmiths of La Rochelle having a scarlet flag with four golden keys on it. The lawyers of Loudoun had a flag with a large eye on it (a single eye to business being, we presume, understood), while those of Laval had a blue banner with three golden mouths thereon. In like manner the metal-workers of Laval carried a black flag with a silver hammer and files depicted on it, those of Niort had a red flag with a silver cup and a fork and spoon in gold on either side. The metal-workers of Ypres also carried a red flag, and on this was represented a golden flagon and two buckles of gold. Should some national stress this year or next lead our City Companies, the Fishmongers, the Carpenters, the Vintners, and others to contribute contingents to the defence of the country, and to send them forth beneath the banners of the guilds, history would but repeat itself.

In matters political the two great opposing parties have their distinctive colours, and these have ordinarily been buff and blue, though the association of buff with the Liberal party and "true blue" with the Conservatives has been by no means so entirely a matter of course as persons who have not looked into the matter might be disposed to imagine. The local colours are often those that were once the livery colours of the principal family in the district, and were assumed by its adherents for the family's sake quite independently of its political creed. The notion of livery is now an unpleasant one, but in mediæval days the colours of the great houses were worn by the whole country-side, and the wearing carried with it no suggestion either of toadyism or servitude. As this influence was hereditary and at one time all-powerful, the colour of the Castle, or Abbey, or Great House, became stereotyped in that district as the symbol of the party of which these princely establishments were the local centre and visible evidence, and the colour still often survives locally, though the political and social system that originated it has passed away in these days of democratic independence.

It would clearly be a great political gain if one colour were all over Great Britain the definite emblem of one side, as many illiterate voters are greatly influenced by the colours worn by the candidates for their suffrages, and have sufficient sense of consistency of principle to vote always for the flag that first claimed

their allegiance, though it may very possibly be that if they move to another county it is the emblem of a totally distinct party, and typifies opinions to which the voter has always been opposed. At a late election a Yorkshire Conservative, who had acquired a vote for Bournemouth, was told that he must "vote pink," but this he very steadily refused to do. He declared that he would "never vote owt else but th' old true blue," so the Liberal party secured his vote; and this sort of thing at a General Election is going on all over the country. The town of Royston, for instance, stands partly in Hertfordshire and partly in Cambridgeshire, and in the former county the Conservatives and in the latter the Liberals are the blue party; hence the significance of the colour in one street of the little town is entirely different to that it bears in another. At Horsham in Sussex we have observed that the Conservative colour is pale pink, while in Richmond in Surrey it is a deep orange. The orange was adopted by the Whigs out of compliment to William III., who was Prince of Orange.

In the old chronicles and ballads reference is made to many forms of flags now obsolete. The term flag is a generic one, and covers all the specific kinds. It is suggested that the word is derived from the Anglo-Saxon verb fleogan, to fly or float in the wind, or from the old German flackern, to flutter. Ensign is an alternative word formed on the idea of the display of insignia, badges, or devices, and was formerly much used where we should now employ the word colours. The company officers in a regiment who were until late years termed ensigns were at a still earlier period more correctly termed ensign-bearers. Milton, it will be recalled, describes a "Bannered host under spread ensigns marching." Sir Walter Scott greatly enlarges our vocabulary when he writes in "Marmion" of where

"A thousand streamers flaunted fair,

Various in shape, device, and hue,

Green, sanguine, purple, red, and blue,

Broad, narrow, swallow-tailed, and square,

Scroll, pennon, pensil, bandrol, there

O'er the pavilions flew,"

while Milton again writes of

"Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced

Standards and gonfalons 'twixt van and rear

Stream in the air, and for distinction serve

Of hierarchies, orders, and degrees."

We have seen that the pomp of funeral display led to the use of pictorial flags of religious type, and with these were associated others that dealt with the mundane rank and position of the

deceased. Thus we find Edmonson, in his book on Heraldry, writing as follows:—"The armorial ensigns, as fixed by the officers of arms, and through long and continued usage established as proper to be carried in funeral processions, are pennons, guidons, cornets, standards, banners, and banner-rolls, having thereon depicted the arms, quarterings, badges, crests, supporters, and devices of the defunct: together with all such other trophies of honour as in his lifetime he was entitled to display, carry, or wear in the field; banners charged with the armorial ensigns of such dignities, titles, offices, civil and military, as were possessed or enjoyed by the defunct at the time of his decease, and banner-rolls of his own matches and lineal descent both on the paternal and maternal side. In case the defunct was an Archbishop, banner-rolls of the arms and insignia of the sees to which he had been elected and translated, and if he was a merchant or eminent trader pennons of the particular city, corporation, guild, fraternity, craft, or company whereof he had been a member." However true the beautiful stanza of Gray—

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth ere gave,

Await at last the inevitable hour,

The paths of glory lead but to the grave"—

the survivors of the deceased most naturally and most justly bore to their rest those to whom honour was due with the full respect to which their career on earth entitled them.

The names bestowed upon the different kinds of flags have varied from time to time, the various authorities of mediæval and modern days not being quite of one mind sometimes, so that while the more salient forms are easily identifiable, some little element of doubt creeps in when we would endeavour to bestow with absolute precision a name to a certain less common form before us, or a definite form to a name that we encounter in some old writer. Whatever looseness of nomenclature, however, may be encountered on the fringe of our subject, the bestowal of the leading terms is sufficiently definite, and it is to these we now turn our attention, reflecting for our comfort that it is of far greater value to us to know all about a form that is of frequent recurrence, and to which abundant reference is made, than to be able to quite satisfactorily decide what special name some abnormal form should carry, or what special form is meant by a name that perhaps only occurs once or twice in the whole range of literature, and even that perhaps by some poet or romance writer who has thought more of the general effect of his description than of the technical accuracy of the terms in which he has clothed it.

The Banner first engages our attention. This was ordinarily, in the earlier days of chivalry, a square flag, though in later examples it may be found somewhat greater in length than in depth, and in some early examples it is considerably greater in depth than in its degree of projection outwards from the lance. In the technical language of the subject, the part of a flag nearest the pole is called the hoist, and the outer part the fly. Fig. [37] is a good illustration of this elongated form. It has been suggested that the shortness of the fly in such cases was in order that the greater fluttering in the wind that such a form as Fig. [30] would produce might be prevented, as this constant tugging at the lance-head would be disagreeable to the holder, while it might, in the rush of the charge, prevent that accuracy of aim that one would desire to give one's adversary the full benefit of at such a crisis in his career. Pretty as this may be as a theory, there is probably not much in it, or the form in those warlike days of chivalry would have been more generally adopted. According to an ancient authority the banner of an emperor should be six feet square; of a king, five; of a prince or duke, four; and of an earl, marquis, viscount, or baron three feet square. When we consider that the great function of the banner was to bear upon its surface the coat-of-arms of its owner, and that this coat was emblazoned upon it and filled up its entire surface in just the same way that we find these charges represented upon his shield, it is evident that no form that departed far either in length or breadth from the square would be suitable for their display. Though heraldically it is allowable to compress or extend any form from its normal proportions when the exigencies of space demand it,[^[4]] it is clearly better to escape this when possible.[^[5]] The arms depicted in Fig. [37] are certainly not the better for the elongation to which they have been subjected, while per contra the bearings on any of the banners in Figs. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], or [11], have had no despite done them, the square form being clearly well-adapted for their due display.

The Rolls of Arms prepared on various occasions by the mediæval and later heralds form an admirable storehouse of examples. Some of these have been reproduced in facsimile, and are, therefore, more or less readily accessible. We have before us as we write the roll of the arms of the Sovereign and of the

spiritual and temporal peers who sat in Parliament in the year 1515, and another excellent example that has been reproduced is the roll of Karlaverok. This Karlaverok was a fortress on the north side of Solway Frith, which it was necessary for Edward I. to reduce on his invasion of Scotland in the year 1300, and this investiture and all the details of the siege are minutely described by a contemporary writer, who gives the arms and names of all the nobles there engaged. As soon as the castle fell into Edward's hands he caused his banner and that of St. Edmund (Fig. [17]), and St. Edward (Fig. [19]), to be displayed upon its battlements. The roll is written in Norman French, of which the following passage may be given as an example:—

"La ont meinte riche garnement

Brode sur cendeaus et samis

Meint beau penon en lance mis

Meint baniere desploie."

That is to say, there were—in modern English wording—many rich devices embroidered on silk and satin, many a beautiful pennon fixed on lance, many a banner displayed. The writer says:—"First, I will tell you of the names and arms, especially of the banners, if you will listen how." Of these numerous banners we give some few examples: Fig. [1] belongs to him "who with a light heart, doing good to all, bore a yellow banner and pennon with a black saltire engrailed, and is called John Botetourte." Fig. [2] is the banner of Sire Ralph de Monthermer; Fig. [3] the devices of Touches, "a knight of good-fame"; while Fig. [4], "the blue with crescents of brilliant gold," was the flag of William de Ridre. "Sire John de Holderton, who at all times appears well and promptly in arms," bore No. 6, the fretted silver on the scarlet field; while Fig. [5] is the cognisance of "Hugh Bardolph, a man of good appearance, rich, valiant, and courteous." Fig. [7] is the well-known lion of the Percys, and is here the banner of Henri de Percy; we meet with it again in Fig. [14]. Fig. [8] is "the banner of good Hugh de Courtenay," while Fig. [9] is that of the valiant Aymer de Valence. Fig. [10] bears the barbels of John de Bar, while the last example we need give (Fig. [11]) is the banner of Sire William de Grandison. Of whom gallant, courteous Englishmen as they were, we can now but say that "they are dust, their swords are rust," and deny them not the pious hope "their souls are with the saints, we trust."

The well-known flag (Fig. [44]), that everyone recognises as the Royal Standard, is nevertheless misnamed, as it should undoubtedly be called the Royal Banner, since it bears the arms of the Sovereign in precisely the same way that any of our preceding

examples bear the arms of the knights with whom they were associated. A standard, as we shall see presently, is an entirely different kind of flag; nevertheless, the term Royal Standard is so firmly established that it is hopeless now to think of altering it, and as it would be but pedantry to ignore it, and substitute in its place, whenever we have occasion to refer to it, its proper title—the Royal Banner—we must, having once made our protest, be content to let the matter stand. Figs. [22], [43], [44], [194], [226], and [245] are all royal or imperial banners, but popular usage insists that we shall call them royal or imperial "standards," so, henceforth, rightly or wrongly, through our pages standards they must be.

The banners of the Knights of the Garter, richly emblazoned with their armorial bearings, are suspended over their stalls in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, while those of the Knights of the Bath are similarly displayed in the Chapel of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey.

The whole of the great mainsail of a mediæval ship was often emblazoned with arms, and formed one large banner. This usage may be very well seen in the illuminations, seals, etc., of that period. As early as the year 1247 we find Otho, Count of Gueldres, represented as bearing on his seal a square banner charged with his arms, a lion rampant; and in a window in the Cathedral of Our Lady, at Chartres, is a figure of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester from 1236 to 1265. He is depicted as bearing in his right hand a banner of red and white, as shown in Fig. [18].

References in the old writers to the banner are very numerous. Thus in the "Story of Thebes" we read of "the fell beastes," that were "wrought and bete upon their bannres displaied brode" when men went forth to war. Lydgate, in the "Battle of Agincourt," writes:—

"By myn baner sleyn will y be

Or y will turne my backe or me yelde."

The same writer declares that at the siege of Harfleur by Henry V., in September, 1415, the king—

"Mustred his meyne faire before the town,

And many other lordes, I dar will say,

With baners bryghte and many penoun."

The trumpeters of the Life Guards and Horse Guards have the Royal Banner attached to their instruments, a survival that recalls the lines of Chaucer:—

"On every trump hanging a brode bannere

Of fine tartarium, full richly bete."

An interesting reference is found in a letter of Queen Katharine of Arragon to Thomas Wolsey, dated Richmond, August 13th, 1513, while King Henry VIII. was in France. Speaking of war with the Scots, her Majesty says: "My hert is veray good to it, and I am horrible besy with making standards, banners, and bagies."[^[6]]

While the men are buckling on their armour for the coming strife, wives, sisters, sweethearts, daughters, with proud hearts, give their aid, and with busy fingers—despite the tear that will sometimes blur the vision of the gay embroidery—swiftly and deftly labour with loving care on the devices that will nerve the warriors to living steel in the shock of battle. The Queen of England, so zealously busy in her task of love, is but a type and exemplar of thousands of her sex before and since. The raven standard of the Danish invaders of Northumbria was worked by the daughters of Regnar Lodbrok, and in the great rebellion in the West of England many a gentlewoman suffered sorely in the foul and Bloody Assize for her zealous share in providing the insurgents with the standards around which they rallied. The Covenanters of Scotland, the soldiers of Garibaldi freeing Italy from the Bourbons, the levies of Kossuth in Hungary, the Poles in the deadly grip of Russia, the armies of the Confederate States in America, the Volunteers who would fain free Greece from the yoke of the Turk,[^[7]] all fought to the death beneath the banners that fair sympathisers with them, and with their cause, placed in their hands. When two great nations, such as France and Germany, fall to blows, the whole armament, weapons, flags, and whatever else may be necessary, is supplied from the government stores according to regulation pattern, but in the case of insurgents against authority struggling—rightly or wrongly—to be free, the weapons may be scythe blades or whatever else comes first to hand, while the standards borne to the field will bear the most extraordinary devices upon them, devices that appeal powerfully at the time to those fighting beneath their folds, but which give a shudder to the purist in heraldic blazonry, as for instance, to quote but one example, the rattle-snake flag with its motto "Beware how you tread on me," adopted by the North American colonists in their struggle against the troops of George III.

When a knight had performed on the field of battle some especially valiant or meritorious act, it was open to the Sovereign to

mark his sense of it by making him a knight-banneret. Thus, in the reign of Edward III., John de Copeland was made a banneret for his service in taking prisoner David Bruce, the King of Scotland, at the battle of Durham; Colonel John Smith, having rescued the royal banner from the Parliamentarians at Edgehill, was in like manner made a knight-banneret by Charles I. The title does not seem to have been in existence before the reign of Edward I., and after this bestowal by Charles I. we hear no more of it till 1743, when the title was conferred upon several English officers by the king, George II., upon the field of Dettingen. It was an essential condition that the rank should be bestowed by the Sovereign on the actual field of battle and beneath the royal banner. General Sir William Erskine was given this rank by George III. on his return from the Continent in 1764, after the battle of Emsdorff; but as the investiture took place beneath the standard of the 15th Light Dragoons and in Hyde Park, it was deemed hopelessly irregular, and, the royal will and action notwithstanding, his rank was not generally recognised.

The ceremony of investiture was in the earlier days a very simple one. The flag of the ordinary knight was of the form known as the pennon—a small, swallow-tailed flag like that borne by our lancer regiments, of which Fig. [30] is an illustration. On being summoned to the royal presence, the king took from him his lance, and either cut or tore away the points of his flag, until he had reduced it roughly to banner form, and then returned it to him with such words of commendation as the occasion called for. What the ceremony employed at so late a period as Dettingen was we have not been able to trace. As the officers there honoured were lanceless and pennonless, it is evident that the formula which served in the Middle Ages was quite inapplicable, but it is equally evident that in the thronging duties and responsibilities of the field of battle the ceremony must always have been a very short and simple one.

The term Standard is appropriately applied to any flag of noble size that answers in the main to the following conditions—that it should always have the Cross of St. George placed next to the staff, that the rest of the flag should be divided horizontally into two or more stripes of colours, these being the prevailing colours in the arms of the bearers or their livery colours, the edge of the standard richly fringed or bordered, the motto and badges of the owner introduced, the length considerably in excess of the breadth, the ends split and rounded off. We find such standards in use chiefly during the fifteenth century, though some characteristic examples of both earlier and later dates may be encountered. Figs. [14] and [15] are very good typical illustrations. The

first of these (Fig. [14]) is the Percy standard. The blue lion, the crescent, and the fetterlock there seen are all badges of the family, while the silver key betokens matrimonial alliance with the Poynings,[^[8]] the bugle-horn with the Bryans,[^[9]] and the falchion with the family of Fitzpayne. The ancient badge of the Percys was the white lion statant. Our readers will doubtless be familiar with the lines—

"Who, in field or foray slack,

Saw the blanch lion e'er give back?"

but Henry Percy, the fifth earl, 1489 to 1577, turned it into a blue one. The silver crescent is the only badge of the family that has remained in active and continuous use, and we find frequent references to it in the old ballads—so full of interesting heraldic allusions—as, for instance, in "The Rising of the North"—

"Erle Percy there his ancyent spred,

The halfe-moon shining all soe faire,"

and in Claxton's "Lament"—

"Now the Percy's crescent is set in blood."

The motto is ordinarily a very important part of the standard, though it is occasionally missing. Its less or greater length or its possible repetition may cut up the surface of the flag into a varying number of spaces. The first space after the cross is always occupied by the most important badge, and in a few cases the spaces beyond are empty.

The motto of the Percys is of great historic interest. It is referred to by Shakespeare, "Now Esperance! Percy! and set on," and we find in Drayton the line, "As still the people cried, A Percy, Esperance!" In the "Mirror for Magistrates" (1574) we read, "Add therefore this to Esperance, my word, who causeth bloodshed shall not 'scape the sword." It was originally the war-cry of the Percys, but it has undergone several modifications, and these of a rather curious and interesting nature, since we see in the sequence a steady advance from blatant egotism to an admission of a higher power even than that of Percy. The war-cry of the first Earl was originally, "Percy! Percy!" but he later substituted for it, "Esperance, Percy." The second and third Earls took merely "Esperance," the fourth took "Esperance, ma comfort," and,

later on, "Esperance en Dieu ma comfort," and the fifth and succeeding Earls took the "Esperance en Dieu."[^[10]]

Fig. [15] is the standard of Sir Thomas de Swynnerton. The swine is an example of the punning allusion to the bearer's name that is so often seen in the charges of mediæval heraldry.

Figs. [14] and [15] are typical standards, having the cross of St. George, the striping of colours, the oblique lines of motto, the elongated tapering form, and all the other features that we have already quoted as belonging to the ideal standard, though one or two of these may at times be absent. Thus, though exceptions are rare, a standard is not necessarily particoloured for example, and, as we have seen, the motto in other examples may be missing. The Harleian MS. No. 2,358 lays down the rule that "every Standard or guydhome is to hang in the Chiefe the Crosse of St. George, to be slitte at the ende, and to conteyne the crest or supporter, with the poesy, worde, and devise of the owner." That the Cross of St. George, the national badge, must always be present and in the most honourable position is full of significance, as it means that whatever else of rank or family the bearer might be, he was first and foremost an Englishman.

Figs. [13] and [16] are interesting modern examples of the Standard. They are from a series of sledge-flags used during the Arctic Expedition of 1875-6, the devices upon them being those of the officers in charge of each detachment.

When in earlier days a man raised a regiment for national defence, he not only commanded it, but its flag often bore his arms or device. Thus the standard of the dragoons raised by Henry, Lord Cardross, in 1689 was of red silk, on which was represented the Colonel's crest, a hand holding a dagger, and the motto "Fortitudine," while in the upper corner next the staff was the thistle of Scotland, surmounted by the crown.

Our readers should now have no difficulty in sketching out for themselves as an exercise the following: The standard of Henry V., white and blue, a white antelope standing between four red roses; the motto "Dieu et mon droit," and in the interspaces more red

roses. The standard of Richard II., white and green, a white hart couchant between four golden suns, the motto "Dieu et mon droit," in the next space two golden suns, and in the next, four. As further exercises, we may give the standard of Sir John Awdeley, of gold and scarlet, having a Moor's head and three white butterflies, the motto "Je le tiens," then two butterflies, then four; and the standard of Frogmorton, of four stripes of red and white, having an elephant's head in black, surrounded by golden crescents. While no one, either monarch or noble, could have more than one banner, since this was composed of his heraldic arms, a thing fixed and unchangeable, the same individual might have two or three standards, since these were mainly made up of badges that he could multiply at discretion, and a motto or poesy that he might change every day if he chose. Hence, for instance, the standards of Henry VII. were mostly green and white, since these were the Tudor livery colours; but in one was "a red firye dragon," and in another "was peinted a donne kowe," while yet another had a silver greyhound between red roses. Stowe and other authorities tell us that the two first of these were borne at Bosworth Field, and that after his victory there over Richard III. these were borne by him in solemn state to St. Paul's Cathedral, and there deposited on his triumphal entry into the metropolis.

The difference between the standard and the banner is very clearly seen in the description of the flags borne at the funeral obsequies of Queen Elizabeth—"the great embroidered banner of England" (Fig. [22]), the banners of Wales, Ireland, Chester, and Cornwall, and the standards of the dragon, greyhound, and falcon. In like manner Stowe tells us that when King Henry VII. took the field in 1513, he had with him the standard with the red dragon and the banner of the arms of England, and Machyn tells that at the funeral of Edward VI., "furst of all whent a grett company of chylderyn in ther surples and clarkes syngyng and then ij harolds, and then a standard with a dragon, and then a grett nombur of ye servants in blake, and then anoder standard with a whyt greyhound." Later on in the procession came "ye grett baner of armes in brodery and with dyvers odere baners."

Standards varied in size according to the rank of the person entitled to them. A MS. of the time of Henry VII. gives the following dimensions:—For that of the king, a length of eight yards; for a duke, seven; for an earl, six; a marquis, six and a half; a viscount, five and a half; a baron, five; a knight banneret, four and a half; and for a knight, four yards. In view of these figures one can easily realise the derivation of the word standard—a thing that is meant to stand; to be rather fastened in the ground as a rallying point than carried, like a banner, about the field of action.

At the funeral of Nelson we find his banner of arms and standard borne in the procession, while around his coffin are the bannerolls, square banner-like flags bearing the various arms of his family lineage. We see these latter again in an old print of the funeral procession of General Monk, in 1670, and in a still older print of the burial of Sir Philip Sydney, four of his near kindred carrying by the coffin these indications of his descent. At the funeral of Queen Elizabeth we find six bannerolls of alliances on the paternal side and six on the maternal. The standard of Nelson bears his motto, "Palmam qui meruit ferat," but instead of the Cross of St. George it has the union of the crosses of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick, since in 1806, the year of his funeral, the England of mediæval days had expanded into the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In the imposing funeral procession of the great Duke of Wellington we find again amongst the flags not only the national flag, regimental colours, and other insignia, but the ten bannerolls of the Duke's pedigree and descent, and his personal banner and standard.

Richard, Earl of Salisbury, in the year 1458, ordered that at his interment "there be banners, standards, and other accoutrements, according as was usual for a person of his degree" and what was then held fitting, remains, in the case of State funerals, equally so at the present day.

The Pennon is a small, narrow flag, forked or swallow-tailed at its extremity. This was carried on the lance. Our readers will recall the knight in "Marmion," who

"On high his forky pennon bore,

Like swallow's tail in shape and hue."

We read in the Roll of Karlaverok, as early as the year 1300, of

"Many a beautiful pennon fixed to a lance,

And many a banner displayed;"

and of the knight in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," we hear that

"By hys bannere borne is hys pennon

Of golde full riche."

The pennon bore the arms of the knight, and they were in the earlier days of chivalry so emblazoned upon it as to appear in their proper position not when the lance was held erect but when held horizontally for the charge. The earliest brass now extant, that of Sir John Daubernoun, at Stoke d'Abernon Church, in Surrey, represents the knight as bearing a lance with pennon. Its date is 1277, and the device is a golden chevron on a field of azure. In

this example the pennon, instead of being forked, comes to a single point.

The pennon was the ensign of those knights who were not bannerets, and the bearers of it were therefore sometimes called pennonciers; the term is derived from the Latin word for a feather, penna, from the narrow, elongated form. The pennons of our lancer regiments (Fig. [30]) give one a good idea of the form, size, and general effect of the ancient knightly pennon, though they do not bear distinctive charges upon them, and thus fail in one notable essential to recall to our minds the brilliant blazonry and variety of device that must have been so marked and effective a feature when the knights of old took the field. In a drawing of the year 1813, of the Royal Horse Artillery, we find the men armed with lances, and these with pennons of blue and white, as we see in Fig. [31].[^[11]]

Of the thirty-seven pennons borne on lances by various knights represented in the Bayeux tapestry, twenty-eight have triple points, while others have two, four, or five. The devices upon these pennons are very various and distinctive, though the date is before the period of the definite establishment of heraldry. Examples of these may be seen in Figs. [39], [40], [41], [42].

The pennoncelle, or pencel, is a diminutive of the pennon, small as that itself is. Such flags were often supplied in large quantities at any special time of rejoicing or of mourning. At the burial in the year 1554 of "the nobull Duke of Norffok," we note amongst other items "a dosen of banerolles of ys progene," a standard, a "baner of damaske, and xij dosen penselles." At the burial of Sir William Goring we find "ther was viij dosen of penselles," while at the Lord Mayor's procession in 1555 we read that there were "ij goodly pennes [State barges] deckt with flages and stremers and a m penselles." This "m," or thousand, we can perhaps scarcely take literally, though in another instance we find "the cordes were hanged with innumerable pencelles."[^[12]]

The statement of the cost of the funeral of Oliver Cromwell is interesting, as we see therein the divers kinds of flags that graced the ceremony. The total cost of the affair was over £28,000, and the unhappy undertaker, a Mr. Rolt, was paid very little, if any, of his bill. The items include "six gret banners wrought on rich taffaty in oil, and gilt with fine gold," at £6 each. Five large standards, similarly wrought, at a cost of £10 each; six dozen

pennons, a yard long, at a sovereign each; forty trumpet banners, at forty shillings apiece; thirty dozen of pennoncelles, a foot long, at twenty shillings a dozen; and twenty dozen ditto at twelve shillings the dozen. Poor Rolt!

In "the accompte and reckonyng" for the Lord Mayor's Show of 1617 we find "payde to Jacob Challoner, painter, for a greate square banner, the Prince's Armes, the somme of seven pounds." We also find, "More to him for the new payntyng and guyldyng of ten trumpet banners, for payntyng and guyldyng of two long pennons of the Lord Maior's armes on callicoe," and many other items that we need not set down, the total cost of the flag department being £67 15s. 10d., while for the Lord Mayor's Show of the year 1685 we find that the charge for this item was the handsome sum of £140.

The Pennant, or pendant, is a long narrow flag with pointed end, and derives its name from the Latin word signifying to hang. Examples of it may be seen in Figs. [20], [21], [23], [24], [36], [38], [100], [101], [102], and [103], and some of the flags employed in ship-signalling are also of pennant form. It was in Tudor times called the streamer. Though such a flag may at times be found pressed into the service of city pageantry, it is more especially adapted for use at sea, since the lofty mast, the open space far removed from telegraph-wires, chimney-pots, and such-like hindrances to its free course, and the crisp sea-breeze to boldly extend it to its full length, are all essential to its due display. When we once begin to extend in length, it is evident that almost anything is possible: the pendant of a modern man-of-war is some twenty yards long, while its breadth is barely six inches, and it is evident that such a flag as that would scarcely get a fair chance in the general "survival of the fittest" in Cheapside. It is charged at the head with the Cross of St. George. Figs. [26], [27], [74] are Tudor examples of such pendants, while Fig. [140] is a portion at least of the pendant flown by colonial vessels on war service, while under the same necessarily abbreviated conditions may be seen in Fig. [151] the pendant of the United States Navy, in [157] that of Chili, and in [173] that of Brazil.

In mediæval days many devices were introduced, the streamer being made of sufficient width to allow of their display. Thus Dugdale gives an account of the fitting up of the ship in which Beauchamp, fifth Earl of Warwick, during the reign of Henry VI., went over to France. The original bill between this nobleman and William Seburgh, "citizen and payntour of London," is still extant, and we see from it that amongst other things provided was "the grete stremour for the shippe xl yardes in length and viij yardes in brede." These noble dimensions gave ample room for

display of the badge of the Warwicks,[^[13]] so we find it at the head adorned with "a grete bere holding a ragged staffe," and the rest of its length "powdrid full of raggid staves,"

"A stately ship,

With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,

Sails filled, and streamers waving."

Machyn tells us in his diary for August 3rd, 1553, how "The Queen came riding to London, and so on to the Tower, makyng her entry at Aldgate, and a grett nombur of stremars hanging about the sayd gate, and all the strett unto Leydenhalle and unto the Tower were layd with graffel, and all the crafts of London stood with their banars and stremars hangyd over their heds." In the picture by Volpe in the collection at Hampton Court of the Embarkation of Henry VIII. from Dover in the year 1520, to meet Francis I. at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, we find, very naturally, a great variety and display of flags of all kinds. Figs. [20], [21], [23] are streamers therein depicted, the portcullis, Tudor rose, and fleur-de-lys being devices of the English king, while the particular ground upon which they are displayed is in each case made up of green and white, the Tudor livery colours. We may see these again in Fig. [71], where the national flag of the Cross of St. George has its white field barred with the Tudor green. In the year 1554 even the naval uniform of England was white and green, both for officers and mariners, and the City trained bands had white coats welted with green. Queen Elizabeth, though of the Tudor race, took scarlet and black as her livery colours; the House of Plantaganet white and red; of York, murrey and blue; of Lancaster, white and blue; of Stuart, red and yellow. The great nobles each also had their special liveries; thus in a grand review of troops on Blackheath, on May 16th, 1552, we find that "the Yerle of Pembroke and ys men of armes" had "cotes blake bordered with whyt," while the retainers of the Lord Chamberlain were in red and white, those of the Earl of Huntingdon in blue, and so forth.

In the description of one of the City pageants in honour of Henry VII. we find among the "baggs" (i.e., badges), "a rede rose and a wyght in his mydell, golde floures de luces, and portcullis also in golde," the "wallys" of the Pavilion whereon these were displayed being "chekkyrs of whyte and grene."

The only other flag form to which we need make any very definite reference is the Guidon. The word is derived from the

French guide-homme, but in the lax spelling of mediæval days it undergoes many perversions, such as guydhome, guydon, gytton, geton, and such-like more or less barbarous renderings. Guidon is the regulation name now applied to the small standards borne by the squadrons of some of our cavalry regiments. The Queen's guidon is borne by the first squadron; this is always of crimson silk; the others are the colour of the regimental facings. The modern cavalry guidon is square in form, and richly embroidered, fringed, and tasselled. A mediæval writer on the subject lays down the law that "a guydhome must be two and a half yardes or three yardes longe, and therein shall be no armes putt, but only the man's crest, cognizance, and device, and from that, from his standard or streamer a man may flee; but not from his banner or pennon bearinge his armes." The guidon is largely employed at State or ceremonious funeral processions; we see it borne, for instance, in the illustrations of the funeral of Monk in 1670, of Nelson in 1806, of Wellington in 1852. In all these cases it is rounded in form, as in Fig. [28]. Like the standard, the guidon bears motto and device, but it is smaller, and has not the elongated form, nor does it bear the Cross of St. George.

In divers countries and periods very diverse forms may be encountered, and to these various names have been assigned, but it is needless to pursue their investigation at any length, as in some cases the forms are quite obsolete; in other cases, while its form is known to us its name is lost, while in yet other instances we have various old names of flags mentioned by the chroniclers and poets to which we are unable now to assign any very definite notion of their form. In some cases, again, the form we encounter may be of some eccentric individuality that no man ever saw before, or ever wants to see again, or, as in Fig. [33], so slightly divergent from ordinary type as to scarcely need a distinctive name. One of the flags represented in the Bayeux tapestry is semi-circular. Fig. [32] defies classification, unless we regard it as a pennon that, by snipping, has travelled three-quarters of the way towards being a banner. Fig. [35], sketched from a MS. of the early part of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum, is of somewhat curious and abnormal form. It is of religious type, and bears the Agnus Dei. The original is in a letter of Philippe de Mezières, pleading for peace and friendship between Charles VI. of France and Richard II. of England.

Flags are nowadays ordinarily made of bunting, a woollen fabric which, from the nature of its texture and its great toughness and durability, is particularly fitted to stand wear and tear. It comes from the Yorkshire mills in pieces of forty yards in length, while the width varies from four to thirty-six inches. Flags are

only printed when of small size, and when a sufficient number will be required to justify the expense of cutting the blocks. Silk is also used, but only for special purposes.

Flag-devising is really a branch of heraldry, and should be in accordance with its laws, both in the forms and the colours introduced. Yellow in blazonry is the equivalent of gold, and white of silver, and it is one of the requirements of heraldry that colour should not be placed upon colour, nor metal on metal. Hence the red and blue in the French tricolour (Fig. [191]) are separated by white; the black and red of Belgium (Fig. [236]) by yellow. Such unfortunate combinations as the yellow, blue, red, of Venezuela (Fig. [170]); the yellow, red, green of Bolivia (Fig. [171]); the red and blue of Hayti (Fig. 178); the white and yellow of Guatemala (Fig. [162]), are violations of the rule in countries far removed from the influence of heraldic law. This latter instance is a peculiarly interesting one; it is the flag of Guatemala in 1851, while in 1858 this was changed to that represented in Fig. [163]. In the first case the red and the blue are in contact, and the white and the yellow; while in the second the same colours are introduced, but with due regard to heraldic law, and certainly with far more pleasing effect.

One sees the same obedience to this rule in the special flags used for signalling, where great clearness of definition at considerable distances is an essential. Such combinations as blue and black, red and blue, yellow and white, carry their own condemnation with them, as anyone may test by actual experiment; stripes of red and blue, for instance, at a little distance blending into purple, while white and yellow are too much alike in strength, and when the yellow has become a little faded and the white a little dingy they appear almost identical. We have this latter combination in Fig. [198], the flag of the now vanished Papal States. It is a very uncommon juxtaposition, and only occurs in this case from a special religious symbolism into which we need not here enter. The alternate red and green stripes in Fig. [63] are another violation of the rule, and have a very confusing effect.[^[14]]

The colours of by far the greatest frequency of occurrence are red, white, and blue; yellow also is not uncommon; orange is only found once, in Fig. [249], where it has a special significance, since this is the flag of the Orange Free State. Green occurs sparingly. Italy (Fig. [197]) is perhaps the best known example. We also find it in the Brazilian flag (Fig. [169]), the Mexican (Fig. [172]), in the Hungarian tricolor (Fig. [214]), and in Figs. [199], [201], [209], the flags

of smaller German States, but it is more especially associated with Mohammedan States, as in Figs. [58], [63], [64], [235]. Black is found but seldom, but as heraldic requirements necessitate that it should be combined either with white or yellow, it is, when seen, exceptionally brilliant and effective. We see it, for example, in the Royal Standard of Spain, (Fig. [194]), in Figs. [207] and [208], flags of the German Empire, in Fig. [226], the Imperial Standard of Russia, and in Fig. [236], the brilliant tricolor of the Belgians.[^[15]]

In orthodox flags anything of the nature of an inscription is very seldom seen. We find a reference to order and progress on the Brazilian flag (Fig. [169]), while the Turkish Imperial Standard (Fig. [238]) bears on its scarlet folds the monogram of the Sultan; but these exceptions are rare.[^[16]] We have seen that, on the contrary, on the flags of insurgents and malcontents the inscription often counts for much. On the alteration of the style in the year 1752 this necessary change was made the subject of much ignorant reproach of the government of the day, and was used as a weapon of party warfare. An amusing instance of this feeling occurs in the first plate of Hogarth's election series, where a malcontent, or perhaps only a man anxious to earn a shilling, carries a big flag inscribed, "Give us back our eleven days." The flags of the Covenanters often bore mottoes or texts. Fig. [34] is a curious example: the flag hoisted by the crew of H.M.S. Niger when they opposed the mutineers in 1797 at Sheerness. It is preserved in the Royal United Service Museum. It is, as we have seen, ordinarily the insubordinate and rebellious who break out into inscriptions of more or less piety or pungency, but we may conclude that the loyal sailors fighting under the royal flag adopted this device in addition as one means the more of fighting the rebels with their own weapons.

During the Civil War between the Royalists and Parliamentarians, we find a great use made of flags inscribed with mottoes. Thus, on one we see five hands stretching at a crown defended by an armed hand issuing from a cloud, and the motto, "Reddite Cæsari." In another we see an angel with a flaming sword treading a dragon underfoot, and the motto, "Quis ut Deus," while yet another is inscribed, "Courage pour la Cause." On a fourth we find an ermine, and the motto, "Malo mori quam fœdari"—"It is better to die than

to be sullied," in allusion to the old belief that the ermine would die rather than soil its fur. Hence it is the emblem of purity and stainless honour.

The blood-red flag is the symbol of mutiny and of revolution. As a sign of disaffection it was twice, at the end of last century, displayed in the Royal Navy. A mutiny broke out at Portsmouth in April, 1797, for an advance of pay; an Act of Parliament was passed to sanction the increase of expenditure, and all who were concerned in it received the royal pardon, but in June of the same year, at Sheerness, the spirit of disaffection broke out afresh, and on its suppression the ringleaders were executed. It is characteristic that, aggrieved as these seamen were against the authorities, when the King's birthday came round, on June 4th, though the mutiny was then at its height, the red flags were lowered, the vessels gaily dressed in the regulation bunting, and a royal salute was fired. Having thus demonstrated their real loyalty to their sovereign, the red flags were re-hoisted, and the dispute with the Admiralty resumed in all its bitterness.

The white flag is the symbol of amity and of good will; of truce amidst strife, and of surrender when the cause is lost. The yellow flag betokens infectious illness, and is displayed when there is cholera, yellow fever, or such like dangerous malady on board ship, and it is also hoisted on quarantine stations. The black flag signifies mourning and death; one of its best known uses in these later days is to serve as an indication after an execution that the requirements of the law have been duly carried out.

Honour and respect are expressed by "dipping" the flag. At any parade of troops before the sovereign the regimental flags are lowered as they pass the saluting point, and at sea the colours are dipped by hauling them smartly down from the mast-head and then promptly replacing them. They must not be suffered to remain at all stationary when lowered, as a flag flying half-mast high is a sign of mourning for death, for defeat, or for some other national loss, and it is scarcely a mark of honour or respect to imply that the arrival of the distinguished person is a cause of grief or matter for regret.

In time of peace it is an insult to hoist the flag of one friendly nation above another, so that each flag must be flown from its own staff.

Even as early as the reign of Alfred England claimed the sovereignty of the seas. Edward III. is more identified with our early naval glories than any other English king; he was styled "King of the Seas," a name of which he appears to have been very proud, and in his coinage of gold nobles he represented himself with shield and sword, and standing in a ship "full royally

apparelled." He fought on the seas under many disadvantages of numbers and ships: in one instance until his ship sank under him, and at all times as a gallant Englishman.

If any commander of an English vessel met the ship of a foreigner, and the latter refused to salute the English flag, it was enacted that such ship, if taken, was the lawful prize of the captain. A very notable example of this punctilious insistance on the respect to the flag arose in May, 1554, when a Spanish fleet of one hundred and sixty sail, escorting the King on his way to England to his marriage with Queen Mary, fell in with the English fleet under the command of Lord Howard, Lord High Admiral. Philip would have passed the English fleet without paying the customary honours, but the signal was at once made by Howard for his twenty-eight ships to prepare for action, and a round shot crashed into the side of the vessel of the Spanish Admiral. The hint was promptly taken, and the whole Spanish fleet struck their colours as homage to the English flag.

In the year 1635 the combined fleets of France and Holland determined to dispute this claim of Great Britain, but on announcing their intention of doing so an English fleet was at once dispatched, whereupon they returned to their ports and decided that discretion was preferable even to valour. In 1654, on the conclusion of peace between England and Holland, the Dutch consented to acknowledge the English supremacy of the seas, the article in the treaty declaring that "the ships of the Dutch—as well ships of war as others—meeting any of the ships of war of the English, in the British seas, shall strike their flags and lower their topsails in such manner as hath ever been at any time heretofore practised." After another period of conflict it was again formally yielded by the Dutch in 1673.

Political changes are responsible for many variations in flags, and the wear and tear of Time soon renders many of the devices obsolete. On turning, for instance, to Nories' "Maritime Flags of all Nations," a little book published in 1848, many of the flags are at once seen to be now out of date. The particular year was one of exceptional political agitation, and the author evidently felt that his work was almost old-fashioned even on its issue. "The accompanying illustrations," he says, "having been completed prior to the recent revolutionary movements on the Continent of Europe, it has been deemed expedient to issue the plate in its present state, rather than adopt the various tri-coloured flags, which cannot be regarded as permanently established in the present unsettled state of political affairs." The Russian American Company's flag, Fig. [59], that of the States of the Church, of the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Turkish Imperial Standard, Fig. [64], and many others

that he gives, are all now superseded. For Venice he gives two flags, that for war and that for the merchant service. In each case the flag is scarlet, having a broad band of blue, which we may take to typify the sea, near its lower edge. From this rises in gold the winged lion of St. Mark, having in the war ensign a sword in his right paw, and in the peaceful colours of commerce a cross. Of thirty-five "flags of all nations," given as a supplement to the Illustrated London News in 1858, we note that eleven are now obsolete: the East India Company, for instance, being now extinct, the Ionian Islands ceded to Greece, Tuscany and Naples absorbed into Italy, and so forth.

In Figs. [52] and [53] we have examples of early Spanish flags, and in [54] and [55] of Portuguese, each and all being taken from a very quaint map of the year 1502. This map may be said to be practically the countries lying round the Atlantic Ocean, giving a good slice of Africa, a portion of the Mediterranean basin, the British Isles, most of South America, a little of North America, the West Indies,[^[17]] etc., the object of the map being to show the division that Pope Alexander VI. kindly made between those faithful daughters of the Church—Spain and Portugal—of all the unclaimed portions of the world. Figs. [52] and [53] are types of flags flying on various Spanish possessions, while Figs. [54] and [55] are placed at different points on the map where Portugal held sway. On one place in Africa we see that No. [54] is surmounted by a white flag bearing the Cross of St. George, so we may conclude that—Pope Alexander notwithstanding—England captured it from the Portuguese. At one African town we see the black men dancing round the Portuguese flag, while a little way off three of their brethren are hanging on a gallows, showing that civilization had set in with considerable severity there. The next illustration on this plate (Fig. [56]) is taken from a sheet of flags published in 1735; it represents the "Guiny Company's Ensign," a trading company, like the East India, Fig. [57], now no longer in existence. Fig. [62] is the flag of Savoy, an ancient sovereignty that, within the memory of many of our readers, has expanded into the kingdom of Italy. The break up of the Napoleonic régime in France, the crushing out of the Confederate States in North America, the dismissal from the throne of the Emperor of Brazil, have all, within comparatively recent years, led to the superannuation and disestablishment of a goodly number of flags and their final disappearance.

We propose now to deal with the flags of the various nationalities, commencing, naturally, with those of our own country.

We were told by a government official that the Universal Code of signals issued by England had led to a good deal of heartburning, as it is prefaced by a plate of the various national flags, the Union Flag of Great Britain and Ireland being placed first. But until some means can be devised by which each nationality can head the list, some sort of precedence seems inevitable. At first sight it seems as though susceptibilities might be saved by adopting an alphabetical arrangement, but this is soon found to be a mistake, as it places such powerful States as Russia and the United States nearly at the bottom of the list. A writer, Von Rosenfeld, who published a book on flags in Vienna in 1853, very naturally adopted this arrangement, but the calls of patriotism would not even then allow him to be quite consistent, since he places his material as follows:—Austria, Annam, Argentine, Belgium, Bolivia, and so forth, where it is evident Annam should lead the world and Austria be content to come in third. Apart from the difficulty of asking Spain, for instance, to admit that Bulgaria was so much in front of her, or to expect Japan to allow China so great a precedence as the alphabetical arrangement favours, a second obstacle is found in the fact that the names of these various States as we Englishmen know them are not in many cases those by which they know themselves or are known by others. Thus a Frenchman would be quite content with the alphabetical arrangement that in English places his beloved country before Germany, but the Teuton would at once claim precedence, declaring that Deutschland must come before "la belle France," and the Espagnol would not see why he should be banished to the back row just because we choose to call him a Spaniard.

In the meantime, pending the Millenium, the flag that more than three hundred millions of people, the wide world over, look up to as the symbol of justice and liberty, will serve very well as a starting point, and then the great Daughter across the Western Ocean, that sprung from the Old Home, shall claim a worthy place next in our regard. The Continent of Europe must clearly come next, and such American nationalities as lie outside the United States, together with Asia and Africa, will bring up the rear.

CHAPTER II.

The Royal Standard—the Three Lions of England—the Lion Rampant of Scotland—Scottish sensitiveness as to precedence—the Scottish Tressure—the Harp of Ireland—Early Irish Flags—Brian Boru—the Royal Standards from Richard I. to Victoria—Claim to the Fleurs-de-Lys of France—Quartering Hanover—the Union Flag—St. George for England—War Cry—Observance of St. George's Day—the Cross of St. George—Early Naval Flags—the London Trained Bands—the Cross of St. Andrew—the "Blue Blanket"—Flags of the Covenanters—Relics of St. Andrew—Union of England and Scotland—the First Union Flag—Importance of accuracy in representations of it—the Union Jack—Flags of the Commonwealth and Protectorate—Union of Great Britain and Ireland—the Cross of St. Patrick—Labours of St. Patrick in Ireland—Proclamation of George III. as to Flags, etc.—the Second Union Flag—Heraldic Difficulties in its Construction—Suggestions by Critics—Regulations as to Fortress Flags—the White Ensign of the Royal Navy—Saluting the Flag—the Navy the Safeguard of Britain—the Blue Ensign—the Royal Naval Reserve—the Red Ensign of the Mercantile Marine—Value of Flag-lore.

Foremost amongst the flags of the British Empire the Royal Standard takes its position as the symbol of the tie that unites all into one great State. Its glowing blazonry of blue and scarlet and gold is brought before us in Fig. [44]. The three golden lions on the scarlet ground are the device of England, the golden harp on the azure field is the device of Ireland, while the ruddy lion rampant on the field of gold[^[18]] stands for Scotland. It may perhaps appear to some of our readers that the standard of the Empire should not be confined to such narrow limits; that the great Dominion of Canada, India, Australia, the ever-growing South Africa, might justly claim a place. Precedent, too, might be urged, since in previous reigns, Nassau, Hanover, and other States have found a resting-place in its folds, and there is much to be said in favour of a wider representation of the greater component parts of our world-wide Empire; but two great practical difficulties arise: the first is that the grand simplicity of the flag would be lost if eight or ten different devices were substituted for the three; and secondly, it would very possibly give rise to a good deal of jealousy and ill-feeling, since it would be impossible to introduce all. As it at present stands, it represents the central home of the Empire, the little historic seed-plot from whence all else has sprung, and to which all turn their eyes as the

centre of the national life. All equally agree to venerate the dear mother land, but it is perhaps a little too much to expect that the people of Jamaica or Hong Kong would feel the same veneration for the beaver and maple-leaves of Canada, the golden Sun of India, or the Southern Cross of Australasia. As it must clearly be all or none, it seems that only one solution of the problem, the present one, is possible. In the same way the Union flag (Fig. [90]) is literally but the symbol of England, Scotland, and Ireland, but far and away outside its primary significance, it floats on every sea the emblem of that Greater Britain in which all its sons have equal pride, and where all share equal honour as brethren of one family.

The earliest Royal Standard bore but the three lions of England, and we shall see presently that in different reigns various modifications of its blazonry arose, either the result of conquest or of dynastic possessions. Thus Figs. [43] and [44], though they bear a superficial likeness, tell a very different story; the first of these, that of George III., laying claim in its fourth quartering to lordship over Hanover and other German States, and in its second quarter to the entirely shadowy and obsolete claim over France, as typified by the golden fleurs-de-lys on the field of azure.

How the three lions of England arose is by no means clear. Two lions were assigned as the arms of William the Conqueror, but there is no real evidence that he bore them. Heraldry had not then become a definite science, and when it did a custom sprang up of assigning to those who lived and died before its birth certain arms, the kindly theory being that such persons, had they been then living, would undoubtedly have borne arms, and that it was hard, therefore, that the mere accident of being born a hundred years too soon should debar them from possessing such recognition of their rank. Even so late as Henry II. the bearing is still traditional, and it is said that on his marriage with Alianore, eldest daughter of William, Duke of Aquitaine and Guienne, he incorporated with his own two lions the single lion that (it is asserted) was the device of his father-in-law. All this, however, is theory and surmise, and we do not really find ourselves on the solid ground of fact until we come to the reign of Richard Cœur-de-Lion. Upon his second Great Seal we have the three lions just as they are represented in Figs. [22], [43], [44], and as they have been borne for centuries by successive sovereigns on their arms, standards, and coinage, and as our readers may see them this day on the Royal Standard and on much of the money they may take out of their pockets. The date of this Great Seal of King Richard is 1195 A.D., so we have, at all events, a period of over seven hundred years, waiving a break during the Commonwealth, in which the three golden lions on their scarlet field have typified the might of England.

The rampant lion within the tressure, the device of Scotland—seen in the second quarter of our Royal Standard, Fig. [44]—is first seen on the Great Seal of King Alexander II., about A.D. 1230, and the same device, without any modification of colour or form[^[19]] was borne by all the Sovereigns of Scotland, and on the accession of James to the throne of the United Kingdom, in the year 1603, the ruddy lion ramping on the field of gold became an integral part of the Standard.

The Scotch took considerable umbrage at their lion being placed in the second place, while the lions of England were placed first, as they asserted that Scotland was a more ancient kingdom than England, and that in any case, on the death of Queen Elizabeth of England, the Scottish monarch virtually annexed the Southern Kingdom to his own, and kindly undertook to get the Southerners out of a dynastic difficulty by looking after the interests of England as well as ruling Scotland. This feeling of jealousy was so bitter and so potent that for many years after the Union, on all seals peculiar to Scottish business and on the flags displayed north of the Tweed, the arms of Scotland were placed in the first quarter. It was also made a subject of complaint that in the Union Flag the cross of St. George is placed over that of St. Andrew (see Figs. [90], [91], [92]), and that the lion of England acted as the dexter support of the royal shield instead of giving place to the Scottish Unicorn. One can only be thankful that Irish patriots have been too sensible or too indifferent to insist upon yet another modification, requiring that whensoever and wheresoever the Royal Standard be hoisted in the Emerald Isle the Irish harp should be placed in the first quarter. While it is clearly impossible to place the device of each nationality first, it is very desirable and, in fact, essential, that the National Arms and the Royal Standard should be identical in arrangement in all parts of the kingdom. The notion of unity would be very inadequately carried out if we had a London version for Buckingham Palace, an Edinburgh version for Holyrood, and presently found the Isle of Saints and "gallant little Wales" insisting on two other variants, and the Isle of Man in insurrection because it was not allowed precedence of all four.

Even so lately as the year 1853, on the issue of the florin, the old jealousy blazed up again. A statement was drawn up and presented to Lord Lyon, King of Arms, setting forth anew the old grievances of the lions in the Standard and the crosses in the Flag of the Union, and adding that "the new two-shilling

piece, called a florin, which has lately been issued, bears upon the reverse four crowned shields, the first or uppermost being the three lions passant of England; the second, or right hand proper, the harp of Ireland; the third, or left hand proper, the lion rampant of Scotland; the fourth, or lower, the three lions of England repeated. Your petitioners beg to direct your Lordship's attention to the position occupied by the arms of Scotland upon this coin, which are placed in the third shield instead of the second, a preference being given to the arms of Ireland over those of this kingdom." It is curious that this document tacitly drops claim to the first place. Probably most of our readers—Scotch, Irish, or English—feel but little sense of grievance in the matter, and are quite willing, if the coin be an insult, to pocket it.

The border surrounding the lion is heraldically known as the tressure. The date and the cause of its introduction are lost in antiquity. The mythical story is that it was added by Achaius, King of Scotland, in the year 792, in token of alliance with Charlemagne, but in all probability these princes scarcely knew of the existence of each other. The French and the Scotch have often been in alliance, and there can be little doubt but that the fleurs-de-lys that adorn the tressure point to some such early association of the two peoples; an ancient writer, Nisbet, takes the same view, as he affirms that "the Tressure fleurie encompasses the lyon of Scotland to show that he should defend the Flower-de-luses, and these to continue a defence to the lyon." The first authentic illustration of the tressure in the arms of Scotland dates from the year 1260. In the reign of James III., in the year 1471 it was "ordaint that in tyme to cum thar suld be na double tresor about his armys, but that he suld ber armys of the lyoun, without ony mur." If this ever took effect it must have been for a very short time. We have seen no example of it.

Ireland joined England and Scotland in political union on January 1st, 1801, but its device—the harp—was placed on the standard centuries before by right of conquest. The first known suggestion for a real union on equal terms was made in the year 1642 in a pamphlet entitled "The Generall Junto, or the Councell of Union; chosen equally out of England, Scotland, and Ireland for the better compacting of these nations into one monarchy. By H. P." This H. P. was one Henry Parker. Fifty copies only of this tract were issued, and those entirely for private circulation. "To persuade to union and commend the benefit of it"—says the author—"will be unnecessary. Divide et impera (divide and rule) is a fit saying for one who aims at the dissipation and perdition of his country. Honest counsellors have ever given contrary advice. England and Ireland are inseparably knit; no severance is possible

but such as shall be violent and injurious. Ireland is an integral member of the Kingdom of England: both kingdoms are coinvested and connexed, not more undivided than Wales or Cornwall."

The conquest of Ireland was entered upon in the year 1172, in the reign of Henry II., but was scarcely completed until the surrender of Limerick in 1691. Until 1542 it was styled not the Kingdom but the Lordship of Ireland.

An early standard of Ireland has three golden crowns on a blue field, and arranged over each other as we see the English lions placed; and a commission appointed in the reign of Edward IV., to enquire what really were the arms of Ireland, reported in favour of the three crowns. The early Irish coinage bears these three crowns upon it, as on the coins of Henry V. and his successors. Henry VIII. substituted the harp on the coins, but neither crowns nor harps nor any other device for Ireland appear in the Royal Standard until the year 1603, after which date the harp has remained in continuous use till the present day.

In the Harleian MS., No. 304 in the British Museum, we find the statement that "the armes of Irland is Gules iij old harpes gold, stringed argent" (as in Fig. [87]), and on the silver coinage for Ireland of Queen Elizabeth the shield bears these three harps. At her funeral Ireland was represented by a blue flag having a crowned harp of gold upon it, and James I. adopted this, but without the crown, as a quartering in his standard: its first appearance on the Royal Standard of England.

Why Henry VIII. substituted the harp for the three crowns is not really known. Some would have us believe that the king was apprehensive that the three crowns might be taken as symbolising the triple crown of the Pope; while others suggest that Henry, being presented by the Pope with the supposed harp of Brian Boru, was induced to change the arms of Ireland by placing on her coins the representation of this relic of her most celebrated native king. The Earl of Northampton, writing in the reign of James I., suggests yet a third explanation. "The best reason," saith he, "that I can observe for the bearing thereof is, it resembles that country in being such an instrument that it requires more cost to keep it in tune than it is worth."[^[20]]

The Royal Standard should only be hoisted when the Sovereign or some member of the royal family is actually within the palace or castle, or at the saluting point, or on board the vessel where we see it flying, though this rule is by no means observed in practice. The only exception really permitted to this is that on certain royal anniversaries it is hoisted at some few fortresses at home and abroad that are specified in the Queen's Regulations.

The Royal Standard of England was, we have seen, in its earliest form a scarlet flag, having three golden lions upon it, and it was so borne by Richard I., John, Henry III., Edward I., and Edward II. Edward III. also bore it for the first thirteen years of his reign, so that this simple but beautiful flag was the royal banner for over one hundred and fifty years. Edward III., on his claim in the year 1340 to be King of France as well as of England, quartered the golden fleurs-de-lys of that kingdom with the lions of England.[^[21]] This remained the Royal Standard throughout the rest of his long reign. Throughout the reign of Richard II. (1377 to 1399) the royal banner was divided in half by an upright line, all on the outer half being like that of Edward III., while the half next the staff was the golden cross and martlets on the blue ground, assigned to Edward the Confessor, his patron saint, as shown in Fig. [19]. On the accession of Henry IV. to the throne, the cross and martlets disappeared, and he reverted to the simple quartering of France and England.

Originally the fleurs-de-lys were scattered freely over the field, semée or sown, as it is termed heraldically, so that besides several in the centre that showed their complete form, others at the margin were more or less imperfect. On turning to Fig. [188], an early French flag, we see this disposition of them very clearly. Charles V. of France in the year 1365 reduced the number to three, as in Fig. [184], whereupon Henry IV. of England followed suit; his Royal Standard is shown in Fig. [22]. This remained the Royal Standard throughout the reigns of Henry V., Henry VI., Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III., Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth—a period of two hundred years.

On the accession of the House of Stuart, the flag was rearranged. Its first and fourth quarters were themselves quartered again, these small quarterings being the French fleur-de-lys and the English lions; while the second quarter was the lion of Scotland, and the third the Irish harp; the first appearance of either of these latter kingdoms in the Royal Standard. This form remained in use throughout the reigns of James I., Charles I., Charles II., and James II. The last semblance of dominion in France had long

since passed away, but it will be seen that alike on coinage, arms, and Standard the fiction was preserved, and Londoners may see at Whitehall the statue still standing of James II., bearing on its pedestal the inscription—"Jacobus secundus Dei Gratia Angliæ, Scotiæ, Franciæ et Hiberniæ Rex."

During the Protectorate, both the Union Flag and the Standard underwent several modifications, but the form that the personal Standard of Cromwell finally assumed may be seen in Fig. [83], where the Cross of St. George for England, St. Andrew for Scotland, and the harp for Ireland, symbolise the three kingdoms, while over all, on a shield, are placed the personal arms of the Protector—a silver lion rampant on a sable field.

William III., on his landing in England, displayed a standard which varied in many respects from those of his royal predecessors, since it contained not only the arms themselves, but these were represented as displayed on an escutcheon, surmounted by the crown, and supported on either side by the lion and unicorn. Above all this was the inscription "For the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England,"[^[22]] while beneath it was "je maintiendray." The arms on the shield are too complex for adequate description without the aid of a diagram; suffice it to say that in addition to the insignia of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France, were eight others dealing with the devices of smaller Continental possessions appertaining to the new monarch. When matters had settled down and his throne was assured, the aggressive inscription, etc., disappeared, and the Royal Standard of William and his Consort Mary, the daughter of King James, reverted to the form used by the Stuart Sovereigns, plus in the centre a small escutcheon bearing the arms of Nassau, these being a golden lion rampant, surrounded by golden billets, upon a shield of azure.

The Royal Standard of Queen Anne bore the devices of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France. On the accession of George I. the arms of Hanover were added, and from 1714 to 1801 the flag was as shown in Fig. [43]. The flag of Anne was very similar to this, only instead of Hanover in the fourth quarter, the arms of England and Scotland, as we see them in the first quarter, were simply repeated in the fourth.

The Hanoverian quarter, Fig. [43], was made up as follows:—The two lions on the red field are the device of Brunswick; the blue lion rampant, surrounded by the red hearts, is the device of Lunenburg; the galloping white horse is for Saxony; and over all is the golden crown of Charlemagne as an indication of the claim set up of being the successor of that potent Sovereign. The horse

of Saxony is said to have been borne sable by the early kings, previous to the conversion to Christianity of Witekind, A.D. 785. Verstigan, however, tells us that the ensign of Hengist at the time of the invasion of England by the Saxons was a leaping white horse on a red ground. The white horse is still the county badge for Kent. The flag, as we see it in Fig. [43], was that of George I. and George II., and remained in use until the forty-second year of the reign of George III.

On January 2nd, 1801, the Fleurs-de-lys of France were at length removed, and the flag had its four quarters as follows:—First and fourth England, second Scotland, and third Ireland; the arms of Hanover being placed on a shield in the centre of the flag. This remained the Royal Standard during the rest of the reign of George III., and throughout the reigns of George IV. and William IV. On the accession of Victoria the operation of the Salique law severed the connexion of Hanover with England, and the present Royal Standard is as shown in Fig. [44], being in its arrangement similar to that of George IV. and William IV., except that the small central shield, bearing the arms of Hanover, is now removed.[^[23]]

We turn now to the National Flag. As the feudal constitution of the fighting force passed away, the use of private banners disappeared, and men, instead of coming to the field as the retainers of some great nobleman and fighting under his leadership and beneath his flag, were welded into a national army under the direct command of the king and such leaders as he might appoint. The days when a great noble could change the fortunes of the day by withdrawing his vassals or transferring himself and them, on the eve of the fight, to the opposing party, were over, and men fought no longer in the interests of Warwick or of Percy, but in the cause of England and beneath the banner of St. George, the national Patron Saint.

"Thou, amongst those saints whom thou dost see,

Shall be a saint, and thine own nation's frend

And patron: thou Saint George shalt called bee,

Saint George of Mery England, the sign of victoree."[^[24]]

At the siege of Antioch, according to Robertus Monachus, a Benedictine of Rheims who flourished about the year 1120, and wrote a history of the Crusade, "Our Souldiers being wearied with the long continuance of the Battaile, and seeing that the number of enemies decreased not, began to faint; when suddenly an infinite number of Heavenly Souldiers all in white descended from the Mountains, the Standard-bearer and leaders of them being Saint George, Saint Maurice, and Saint Demetrius, which when the Bishop of Le Puy first beheld he cryed aloud unto his troopes, 'There are they (saith he) the succours which in the name of God I promised to you.' The issue of the miracle was this, that presently the enemies did turne their backs and lost the field: these being slaine, 100,000 horse, beside foot innumerable, and in their trenches such infinite store of victuals and munition found that served not only to refresh the wearied Christians, but to confound the enemy." This great victory at Antioch led to the recovery of Jerusalem. At the Crusades England, Arragon, and Portugal all assumed St. George as their patron saint.

Throughout the Middle Ages the war-cry of the English was the name of this patron saint. "The blyssed and holy Martyr Saynt George is patron of this realme of Englande, and the crye of men of warre," we read in the "Golden Legend," and readers of Shakespeare will readily recall illustrations. Thus in "King Richard II." we read:—

"Sound drums and trumpets, boldly and cheerfully,

God and St. George! Richard and victory."

or again in "King Henry V." where the king at the siege of Harfleur cries,

"The game's afoot,

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

Cry, God for Harry, England, and St. George!"

while in "King Henry VI." we find the line,

"Then strike up, drums—God and St. George for us!"[^[25]]

At the battle of Poitiers, September 19th, 1356, upon the advance of the English, the Constable of France threw himself, Lingard tells us, across their path with the battle shout, "Mountjoy, St. Denis," which was at once answered by "St. George, St. George," and in the onrush of the English the Duke and the greater part of his

followers were swept away, and in a few minutes slain. In an interesting old poem on the siege of Rouen in 1418, written by an eye-witness, we read that on the surrender of the city,

"Whanne the gate was openyd there

And thay weren ready in to fare,

Trumpis blew ther bemys of bras,

Pipis and clarionys forsoothe ther was.

And as they entrid thay gaf a schowte

With ther voyce that was full stowte,

Seint George! Seint George! thay criden on height

And seide, Welcome oure kynges righte!"

We have before us, as we write, "The story of that most blessed Saint and Souldier of Christ Jesus, St. George of Cappadocia," as detailed by Peter Heylyn, and published in 1633, and the temptation to quote at length from it is great, as it is full of most interesting matter, but into the history of St. George space forbids us to go at any length. The author of the "Seven Champions of Christendom" makes St. George to be born of English parentage at Coventry, but for this there is no authority whatever, and all other writers make Cappadocia his birthplace. The history of St. George is more obscure than that of any name of equal eminence in the Calendar. According to the "Acta Sanctorum" he was the son of noble parents, became famous as a soldier, and, embracing Christianity, was tortured to death at Nicomedia in the year 303.

"The hero won his well-earned place,

Amid the Saints, in death's dread hour;

And still the peasant seeks his grave,

And, next to God, reveres his power.

In many a Church his form is seen,

With sword, and shield, and helmet sheen;

Ye know him by his shield of pride,

And by the dragon at his side."

As Patron Saint, the dragon vanquisher is still seen on our crowns and sovereigns, and reference to such a book as Ruding's history of our coinage will show that it has for centuries been a popular device.

In 1245, on St. George's Day, Frederic of Austria instituted an order of knighthood and placed it under the guardianship of the soldier-saint, and its white banner, bearing the ruddy cross, floated in battle alongside that of the Empire. In like manner on St. George's Day, in the year 1350, Edward III. of England instituted the order of the Garter with great solemnity.

St. George's Day, April 23rd, has too long been suffered to pass almost unregarded. The annual festivals of St. Andrew, St. Patrick, and St. David are never overlooked by the members of the various nationalities, and it seems distinctly a thing to be regretted that the Englishman should allow the name day of his Patron Saint to pass unnoticed.[^[26]] Whatever conduces to the recognition of national life is valuable, and anything that reminds Englishmen of their common ties and common duties—and reminds them, too, of their glorious heritage in the past—should scarcely be allowed to fall into disuse. Butler, in his "Lives of the Fathers and Martyrs," tell us that at the great National Council, held at Oxford in 1222, it was commanded that the Feast of St. George should be kept. In the year 1415, by the Constitutions of Archbishop Chichely, St. George's Day was made one of the greater feasts and ordered to be observed the same as Christmas Day. In 1545 a special collect, epistle, and gospel were prepared, and at the Reformation, when many of the Saints' Days were swept away, this was preserved with all honour, and it was not till the sixth year of the reign of Edward VI., when another revision was made, that in "The Catalogue of such Festivals as are to be Observed" St. George's day was omitted.

The Cross of St. George was worn as a badge,[^[27]] over the armour, by every English soldier in the fourteenth and subsequent centuries, even if the custom did not prevail at a much earlier period. The following extract from the ordinances made for the government of the army with which Richard II. invaded Scotland in 1386, is a good illustration of this, wherein it is ordered "that everi man of what estate, condicion, or nation thei be of, so that he be of owre partie, here 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 hath so doon to hym shall not be putte to deth for defaulte of the cross that he lacketh. And that non enemy do bere the same token or crosse of Saint George, notwithstandyng if he be prisoner, upon payne of deth." It was the flag of battle, and we see it represented in the old prints and illuminations that deal with military operations both on land and sea. Ordinarily it is the Cross of St. George, pure and simple, as shown in Fig. [91], while at

other times, as in Figs. [66], [67], [68], it forms a portion only of the flag. The red cross on the white field was the flag under which the great seamen of Elizabeth's reign traded, explored, or fought; the flag that Drake bore round the world—that Frobisher unfolded amidst the Arctic solitudes—that gallant Englishmen, the wide world over, bore at the call of duty and died beneath, if need be, for the honour of the old home land; and to this day the flag of the English Admiral is the same simple and beautiful device, and the white ensign of the British Navy, Fig. [95], is similar, except that it bears, in addition, the Union; while the Union flag itself, Fig. [90], bears conspicuously the ruddy cross of the warrior Saint.

Figs. [26], [27], [74] and [140] are all sea-pennants bearing the Cross of St. George. The first of these is from a painting of H.M.S. Tiger, painted by Van de Velde, while Fig. [27] is flying from one of the ships represented in the picture by Volpe of the embarkation of Henry VIII. from Dover on his way to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Fig. [74] is from a picture of H.M.S. Lion, engaging the French ship Elisabethe, on July 9th, 1745, the latter being fitted out to escort the Young Pretender to Scotland. Though the red, white, and blue stripes suggest the French tricolor, their employment in the pennant has, of course, no reference to France. The Lion had at the foremast the plain red streamer seen at Fig. [25]. Fig. [140] is the pennant flown at the present day by all Colonial armed vessels, while the pennant of the Royal Navy is purely white, with the exception of the Cross of St. George. In a picture by Van de Velde, the property of the Queen, representing a sea fight on August 11th, 1673, between the English, French, and Dutch, we see some of the vessels with streamers similar to Fig. [140], thus ante-dating the Colonial flag by over two hundred years.

As we have at the present time the white ensign, Fig. [95], the special flag of the Royal Navy; the blue ensign, Fig. [96], the distinguishing flag of the Royal Naval Reserve; and the red ensign, Fig. [97], the flag of the Merchant Service, each with the Union in the upper corner next the mast, so in earlier days we find the white flag, Fig. [65], the red flag, Fig. [66], and the blue, each having in the upper corner the Cross of St. George. Fig. [69] becomes, by the addition of the blue, a curious modification of Fig. [66]. It is from a sea piece of the sixteenth century. It was displayed at the poop of a vessel, while Fig. [79] is the Jack on the bowsprit.

A hundred years ago or so, we may see that there was a considerable variety in the flags borne by our men-o'-war. Such galleries as those at Hampton Court or Greenwich afford many examples of this in the pictures there displayed. In a picture of a battle off Dominica, on April 12th, 1782, we find, one of the English

ships has two great square flags on the foremast, the upper one being plain red, and the lower one half blue and half white in horizontal stripes, while the main mast is surmounted by the Cross of St. George, and below it a tricolor of red, white, and blue in horizontal stripes. Other ships show equally curious variations, though we need not stop to detail them, except that in one case both fore and mizen masts are surmounted by plain red flags. In a picture of Rodney's Action off Cape St. Vincent, on January 16th, 1780, we meet with all these flags again. In the representation of an action between an English and French fleet on May 3rd, 1747, off Cape Finisterre, we notice that the English ships have a blue ensign at the poop, and one of them has a great plain blue flag at the foremast, and a great plain red flag at the main-mast head. In a picture of the taking of Portobello, November 21st, 1739, we notice the same thing again. These plain surfaces of blue or red are very curious. It will naturally occur to the reader that these are signal flags, but anyone seeing the pictures would scarcely continue to hold that view, as their large size precludes the idea. In the picture of H.M.S. Tiger that we have already referred to, the flag with five red stripes that we have represented in Fig. [70] is at the poop, while from the bow is hoisted a flag of four stripes, and from the three mastheads are flags, having three red stripes. These striped red and white flags may often be seen.

Perhaps the most extraordinary grouping of flags may be seen in a picture of a naval review in the reign of George I. It was on exhibition at the Great Naval Exhibition at Chelsea, and is in private ownership. All the vessels are dressed in immense flags, and these are of the most varied description. It must be borne in mind that these are government bunting, not the irresponsible vagaries of private eccentricity. Besides the reasonable and orthodox flags, such as those represented in Figs. [65], [66], and others of equal propriety, we find one striped all over in red, white, blue, red, white, blue, in six horizontal stripes. Another, with a yellow cross on a white ground; a third, a white eagle on a blue field; another, a red flag inscribed—"For the Protestant Religion and the Liberty of England"; while another is like Fig. [65], only instead of having a red cross on white, it has a blue one instead. An altogether strange assortment.

Figs. [67], [68], [72], and [78] are flags of the London Trained Bands of the year 1643. The different regiments were known by the colour of their flags, thus Fig. [67] is the flag of the blue regiment, Fig. [68] of the yellow, Fig. [72] of the green, and Fig. [78] of the yellow regiment auxiliaries. Other flags were as follows:—white, with red lozenges; green, with golden wavy rays; orange, with white trefoils; in each case the Cross of St. George being in the canton.

In a list before us of the Edinburgh Trained Bands for 1685 we find that the different bodies are similarly distinguished by colours.[^[28]]

On the union of the two crowns at the accession of James VI. of Scotland and I. of England to the English throne, the Cross of St. Andrew, Fig. [92], was combined with that of St. George.

The Cross of St. Andrew has been held in the same high esteem north of the Tweed that the Southrons have bestowed on the ensign of St. George. It will be seen that it is shaped like the letter X. Tradition hath it that the Saint, deeming it far too great an honour to be crucified as was his Lord, gained from his persecutors the concession of this variation. It is legendarily asserted that this form of cross appeared in the sky to Achaius, King of the Scots, the night before a great battle with Athelstane, and, being victorious, he went barefoot to the church of St. Andrew, and vowed to adopt his cross as the national device. The sacred monogram that replaced the Roman eagles under Constantine, the cross on the flag of Denmark, the visions of Joan of Arc, and many other suchlike illustrations, readily occur to one's mind as indicative of the natural desire to see the potent aid of Heaven visibly manifested in justification of earthly ambitions, or a celestial support and encouragement in time of national discomfiture.

Figs. [75] and [76] are examples of the Scottish red and blue ensigns. The first of these is from a picture at Hampton Court, where a large Scottish warship is represented as having a flag of this character at the main, and smaller but similar colours at the other mastheads and on the bowsprit.

The famous banner, the historic "blue blanket," borne by the Scots in the Crusades, was on its return deposited over the altar of St. Eloi in St. Giles' Church, Edinburgh, and the queen of James II., we read, painted on its field of azure the white Cross of St. Andrew, the crown, and the thistle. St. Eloi was the patron saint of blacksmiths, and this craft was made the guardian of the flag, and it became the symbol of the associated trades of ancient Edinburgh. King James VI., when venting his indignation against his too independent subjects, exclaimed, "The craftsmen think we should be contented with their work, and if in anything they be controlled, then up goes the blue blanket." The craftsmen were as independent and difficult to manage as the London Trained Bands often proved, but King James VI. found it expedient to confirm them in

all their privileges, and ordered that the flag should at all times be known as the Standard of the Crafts, and later Sovereigns found it impossible to take away these privileges when they had once been granted. This flag was borne at Flodden Field. Beside the cross, crown, and thistle it bore on a scroll on the upper part of the flag the inscription, "Fear God and honor the king with a long lyffe and prosperous reigne," and on the lower portion the words, "And we that is trades shall ever pray to be faithfull for the defence of his Sacred Majesties' persone till deathe," an inscription that scarcely seems to harmonise with the turbulent spirit that scandalised this sovereign so greatly.

The flags borne by the Covenanters in their struggle for liberty varied much in their details, but in the great majority of cases bore upon them the Cross of St. Andrew, often accompanied by the thistle, and in most cases by some form of inscription. Several of these are still extant. In one that was borne at Bothwell Brig, and now preserved in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh, the four blue triangles (see Fig. [92] for these) are filled with the words, "For Religion——Couenants——King——and Kingdomes." The Avondale flag was a white one, having the cross, white on blue, as in Fig. [75], in the corner. On the field of the flag was the inscription, "Avondale for Religion, Covenant, and King,"[^[29]] and beneath this a thistle worked in the national green and crimson. A very interesting Exhibition of Scottish national memorials was held at Glasgow in 1888, and many of these old Covenant flags were there displayed. At the great Heraldic Exhibition held in Edinburgh in 1891, one of the most interesting things shown was the Cavers Standard. This is of sage green silk, twelve feet by three. It bears the Cross of St. Andrew next the staff, and divers other devices are scattered over the rest of the flag. It is in excellent preservation, and its special interest lies in the fact that it is said to have been the standard of James, second Earl of Douglas and Mar, and borne by his son at the battle of Otterburn in the year 1388. If this be so it is one of the oldest flags in existence.

On the signet-ring of Mary Queen of Scots the white Cross of St. Andrew is not shown on its usual blue ground, but on a ground striped blue and yellow, the royal colours; in the same way that the St. George's Cross is shown in Fig. [71], not on a

white ground, but on a ground striped white and green, the Tudor colours.

Why St. Andrew was selected to be the Patron Saint of Scotland has never been satisfactorily settled.[^[30]] Some uncharitable enquirer has hazarded the explanation that it was because it was this Apostle who discovered the lad who had the loaves and fishes. Others tell us that one Hungus, a Pictish prince, dreamt that the Saint was to be his champion in a fight just then pending with the men of Northumbria, and that a cross—the symbol of the crucifixion of this Apostle—appeared in the sky, the celestial omen strengthening the hearts and arms of the men of Hungus to such effect that the Northumbrians were completely routed. Should neither of these explanations appear sufficiently explanatory, we can offer yet a third. On the martyrdom of St. Andrew, in the year 69, at Patræ, in Achaia, his remains were carefully preserved as relics, but in the year 370, Regulus, one of the Greek monks who had them in their keeping, was warned in a vision that the Emperor Constantine was proposing to translate these remains to Constantinople, and that he must at once visit the shrine and remove thence an arm bone, three fingers of the right hand, and a tooth, and carry them away over sea to the west. Regulus was much troubled at the vision, but hastened to obey it, so putting the relics into a chest he set sail with some half-dozen other ecclesiastics, to whom he confided the celestial instructions that he had received. After a stormy voyage the vessel was at last dashed upon a rock, and Regulus and his companions landed on an unknown shore, and found themselves in a dense and gloomy forest. Here they were presently discovered by the aborigines, whose leader listened to their story and gave them land on which to build a church for the glory of God and the enshrining of the relics. This inhospitable shore proved to be that of "Caledonia, stern and wild," and the little forest church and hamlet that sprang up around it were the nucleus that thence and to the present day have been known as St. Andrews, a thriving, busy town in Fife, and for centuries the seat of a bishopric. On July 5th, 1318, Robert the Bruce repaired hither and testified his gratitude to God for the victory vouchsafed to the Scots at Bannockburn by the intercession of St. Andrew, guardian of the realm, when thirty thousand Scots defeated one hundred thousand Englishmen. What St. George could have been doing to allow this, seems a very legitimate question, but we can scarcely wonder that the Scots should very gladly appoint so potent a protector their patron, and look to him for succour in all their national difficulties.

On the blending of the two kingdoms into one under the

sovereignty of King James,[^[31]] it became necessary to devise a new flag that should typify this union and blend together the emblems of the puissant St. George and the no less honoured St. Andrew, and the flag represented in Fig. [73] was the result—the flag of the United Kingdoms of England and Scotland, henceforth to be known as Great Britain.

The Royal Ordinance[^[32]] ran as follows:—"Whereas some difference hath arisen between our subjects of South and North Britain, travelling by seas, about the bearing of their flags,—for the avoiding of all such contentions hereafter we have, with the advice of our Council, ordered that from henceforth all our subjects of this isle and kingdom of Greater Britain, and the members thereof, shall bear in their maintop the Red Cross, commonly called St. George's Cross, and the White Cross, commonly called St. Andrew's Cross, joined together, according to a form made by our Heralds, and sent by us to our Admiral to be published to our said subjects: and in their fore-top our subjects of South Britain shall wear the Red Cross only, as they were wont, and our subjects of North Britain in their fore-top the White Cross only, as they were accustomed. Wherefore we will and command all our subjects to be comparable and obedient to this our order, and that from henceforth they do not use or bear their flags in any other sort, as they will answer the contrary at their peril."

Such a proclamation was sorely needed, as there was much ill-will and jealousy between the sailors and others of the two nationalities, and the Union flag itself, when "our heralds" produced it, did not by any means please the North, and the right to carry in fore-top the St. Andrew's Cross pure and simple was a concession that failed to conciliate them. The great grievance was that, as we see in Fig. [73], the Cross of St. George was placed in front of that of St. Andrew, and the Scottish Privy Council, in a letter dated Edinburgh, August 7th, 1606, thus poured forth their feelings:—"Most sacred Soverayne, a greate nomber of the maisteris of the schippis of this your Majesties kingdome hes verie havelie complenit to your Majesties Counsell, that the forme and patrone of the flagges of schippis sent down heir and command it to be ressavit and used be the subjectis of both kingdomes is verie prejudiciall to the fredome and dignitie of this Estate, and wil gif occasioun of reprotche to this natioun quhairevir the said flage sal happin to be worne beyond sea,

becaus, as your Sacred Majestie may persave, the Scottis Croce, callit Sanctandrois Croce, is twyse divydit, and the Inglishe Croce, callit Sanct George, drawne through the Scottis Croce, which is thereby obscurit, and no token nor mark to be seene of the Scottis armes. This will breid some heit and miscontentment betwix your Majesties subjectis, and it is to be feirit that some inconvenientis sall fall oute betwix thame, for our seyfaring men cannot be inducit to resave that flage as it is set down. They have drawne two new drauchtis and patrones as most indifferent for both kingdomes, whiche they presentid to the Counsell, and craved our approbation of the same, but we haif reserved that to your Majestie's princelie determinatioun, as moir particularlie the Erll of Mar, who was present, and herd their complaynt, and to whom we haif remittit the discourse and delyverie of that mater, will informe your Majestie and let your Heynes see the errour of the first patrone and the indifferencie of the two newe drauchties." These draughts are not to be found, nor does it appear that any notice was taken of the complaint.

The Scottish Union flag, as carefully depicted in a scarce little work published in 1701, and entitled "The Ensigns, Colours, and Flags of the Ships at Sea, belonging to the several Princes and States in the World," may be seen in Fig. [88]. In it will be noted that the Cross of St. Andrew is placed in front of that of St. George—anyone comparing Figs. [73] and [88] will readily see wherein they differ. Though its appearance in a book of sea-flags would seem to imply that such a flag had been made, we know of no other instance of it. Fig. [84] was also suggested as a solution of the problem, but here we get false heraldry, the blue in contact with the red, and in any case a rather weak-looking arrangement.

The painful truth is that when two persons ride the same animal they cannot both be in front, and no amount of heraldic ingenuity will make two devices on a flag to be of equal value. The position next the staff is accounted more honourable than that remote from it, and the upper portion of the flag is more honourable than the lower.[^[33]] At first sight it might appear that matters are impartially dealt out in Fig. [81], but the position next the staff is given to St. George, and in the quartered arrangement, Fig. [85], the same holds true. Both these were suggestions made at the time the difficulty was felt, but both were discarded in favour of the arrangement shown in Fig. [73].

This Union Flag is not very often met with. It occurrs on one of the great seals of Charles II., and is seen also as a Jack on the

bowsprits of ships in paintings of early naval battles. It may, by good fortune, be seen also on the two colours of the 82nd regiment that in the year 1783 were suspended in St. Giles', Edinburgh, and a very good illustration of it may be seen in the National Gallery, where, in a battle scene by Copley, representing the death of Major Peirson, at St. Helier, Jersey, on January 6th, 1781, this Union flag is conspicuous in the centre of the picture. We have it again in Fig [57], the original flag of the East India Company; the difference between this and the second Union Flag, made on the admission of Ireland's Cross of St. Patrick, may be very well seen on a comparison of Figs. [57] and [61]. We have it again in Figs. [142] and [143], flags of the revolting American Colonists before they had thrown off all allegiance to the Old Country.

A knowledge of the history of the flag has not only interest, but is of some little importance. We remember seeing a picture of the sailing of the Mayflower, in which, by a curious lack of a little technical knowledge, the flag depicted was the Union Flag of to-day, which did not come into existence until the first year of the present century, whereas the historic event represented in the picture took place in the year 1620. In a fresco in the House of Lords, representing Charles II. landing in England,[^[34]] the artist has introduced a boat bearing the present Union Flag. In each of these cases it is evident that it should have been the first Union—that of England and Scotland—that the flag should have testified to.

Charles I. issued a proclamation on May 5th, 1634, forbidding any but the Royal ships to carry the Union flag; all merchantmen, according to their nationality, being required to show either the Cross of St. George or that of St. Andrew. Queen Anne, on July 28th, 1707, required that merchant vessels should fly a red flag "with a Union Jack described in a canton at the upper corner thereof, next the staff," while the Union Flag, as before, was reserved for the Royal Navy. This merchant flag, if we cut out the inscription there shown, would be similar to Fig. [142]. This is interesting, because, after many changes, so lately as October 18th, 1864, it was ordered that the red ensign once again should be the distinguishing flag of the commercial marine; the present flag is given in Fig. [97]. It is further interesting because this proclamation of Queen Anne's is the first time that the term Union Jack, so far as we are aware, is officially used.

Technically, our national banner should be called the Union Flag, though in ordinary parlance it is always called the Union Jack.

The latter flag is a diminutive of the former, and the term ought in strictness to be confined to the small Union Flag flown from the Jack-staff on the bowsprit of a ship. The Union Flag is, besides this, only used as the special distinguishing flag of an Admiral of the Fleet, when it is hoisted at the main top-gallant mast-head, and when the Sovereign is on board a vessel, in which case the Royal Standard is flown at the main and the Union at the mizen. With a white border round it, as in Fig. [104], it is the signal for a pilot: hence this is called the Pilot Jack. The sea flags now in use are the white, red, and blue ensigns, Figs. [95], [96], [97], to be hereafter described, while the Union flag is devoted especially to land service, being hoisted on fortresses and government offices, and borne by the troops.

Why the flag should be called "Jack" at all has been the subject of much controversy. It is ordinarily suggested that the derivation is from Jacques, the French word for James, the Union Jack springing into existence under his auspices. Why it should be given this French name does not seem very clear, except that many of the terms used in blazonry are French in their origin. It never seems to have been suggested that, granting the reference to King James, the Latin Jacobus would be a more appropriate explanation, as the Latin names of our kings have for centuries supplanted the earlier Norman-French on their coins, seals, and documents. Several other theories have been broached, of varying degrees of improbability; one of these deriving it from the word "jaque"[^[35]] (hence our modern jacket), the surcoat worn over the armour in mediæval days. This, we have seen, had the Cross of St. George always represented on it; but there is no proof that the jaque was ever worn with the union of the two crosses upon it, so that the derivation breaks down just at the critical point. The present flag came into existence in the reign of King George, but no one ever dreams on this account, or any other, of calling it the Union George.

On the death of Charles I., the partnership between England and Scotland was dissolved, and the Union Flag, Fig. [73], therefore, was disestablished, and was only restored in the general Restoration, when the Commonwealth and Protectorate had run their course, and Charles II. ascended the throne of his forefathers.

The earliest Commonwealth Flag was a simple reversion to the Cross of St. George, Fig. [91]. At a meeting of the Council of State, held on February 22nd, 1648-49, it was "ordered that the ships at sea in service of the State shall onely beare the red Crosse

in a white flag. That the engravings upon the Sterne of ye ships shall be the Armes of England and Ireland in two Scutcheons, as is used in the Seals, and that a warrant be issued to ye Commissioners of ye Navy to see it put in execution with all speed." The communication thus ordered to be made to the Commissioners was in form a letter from the President of the Council as follows:—"To ye Commissioners of ye Navy.—Gentlemen,—There hath beene a report made to the Councell by Sir Henry Mildmay of your desire to be informed what is to be borne in the flaggs of those Ships that are in the Service of the State, and what to be upon the Sterne in lieu of the Armes formerly thus engraven. Upon the consideration of the Councell whereof, the Councell have resolved that they shall beare the Red Crosse only in a white flagg, quite through the flagg. And that upon the Sterne of the Shipps there shall be the Red Crosse in one Escotcheon, and the Harpe in one other, being the Armes of England and Ireland, both Escotcheons joyned according to the pattern herewith sent unto you. And you are to take care that these Flaggs may be provided with all expedition for the Shipps for the Summer Guard, and that these engraveings may also be altered according to this direction with all possible expedition.—Signed in ye name and by order of ye Councell of State appointed by Authority of Parliament.—Ol. Cromwell, Derby House, February 23rd, 1648."

In a Council meeting held on March 5th, considerably within a month of the one we have just referred to, it is "ordered that the Flagg that is to be borne by the Admiral, Vice-Admiral, and Rere-Admiral be that now presented, viz., the Armes of England and Ireland in two severall Escotcheons in a Red Flagg, within a compartment."[^[36]] This arrangement may be seen in Fig. [82]. A Commonwealth flag that is still preserved at the dockyard, Chatham, differs slightly from this. The ground of the flag is red, but the shields are placed directly upon it without any intervening gold border, and around them is placed a large wreath of palm and laurel in dark green colour.

In the year 1787 an interesting book called the "Respublica" was published; the author, Sir John Prestwich, deriving much of his material from MSS. left by an ancestor of his who lived during the Interregnum. In this the reader may find full descriptions of many of the flags of the Parliamentarians. One of these is much like the Chatham example already referred to, except that the ground of the flag is blue, and that outside the shields, but within the wreath, is found the inscription—"Floreat Respublica."

The flag of the Commonwealth was borne to victory at Dunbar, Worcester, and many another hard-fought field, and under its folds Blake, Monk, and other gallant leaders gained glorious victories over the Dutch and Spaniards, and made the English name feared in every sea.

"Of wind's and water's rage they fearful be,

But much more fearful are your flags to see.

Day, that to those who sail upon the deep,

More wish'd for and more welcome is than sleep,

They dreaded to behold, lest the sun's light

With English streamers should salute their sight."[^[37]]

It was not until the year 1651 that Scotland was brought under the sway of the Commonwealth, and the ordinance for its full union with England and Ireland was not promulgated until April 12th, 1654. Somewhat later an Order of Council recognised the new necessities of the case, and decreed that the Standard for the Protectorate be as shown in Fig. [83]. England and Scotland are here represented by their respective crosses, while Ireland, instead of having the Cross of St. Patrick, is represented by the harp. In Fig. [80] all three crosses are introduced, but there seems somewhat too much white in this latter flag for an altogether successful effect, and the blue of the Irish quarter, balancing the blue of the Scottish, is more pleasing. The Union Flag underwent yet another modification, and instead of being like Figs. [82] or [86], the Union Flag of James I., Fig. [73], was reverted to, and in the centre of the flag was placed a golden harp—"the Armes of England and Scotland united, according to the anncient form, with the addicion of the harpe." On the restoration of Charles II. this harp was removed, and Ireland does not appear again in the Union Flag, Fig. [73], until January 1st, 1801.

A pattern farthing of this period—preserved in the magnificent numismatic collection in the British Museum—shows on its reverse a three-masted ship: at the stern is a large flag divided vertically, like Fig. [86], into two compartments, the Cross of St. George in one and the harp in the other; the main and mizen masts are shown with flags containing St. George's Cross only, as in Fig. [91], while the foremast bears a flag with St. Andrew's Cross upon it, a flag similar to Fig. [92].

For nearly fifty years before its rise, and for nearly one hundred and fifty years after the downfall of the Protectorate, that is to say from 1602 to 1649 and from 1659 to 1801, the Union Flag was as shown in Fig. [73], but in 1801 the Legislative Union of Ireland with Great Britain was effected, and a new Union Flag, the one now in

use, was devised. This may be seen in Fig. [90], the noblest flag that flies under heaven.

Though the National Flag is primarily just so much silk or bunting, its design and colouring are full of meaning: and though its prime cost may be but a few shillings, its value is priceless, for the national honour is enwrapped in its folds, and the history of centuries is figured in the symbolism of its devices. It represents to us all that patriotism means. It is the flag of freedom and of the greatest empire that the world has ever known. Over three hundred millions of people—in quiet English shires, amid Canadian snows, on the torrid plains of Hindustan, amidst the busy energy of the great Australian group of colonies, or the tropical luxuriance of our West Indian possessions—are to-day enjoying liberty and peace beneath its shelter. Countless thousands have freely given their lives to preserve its blazonry unstained from dishonour and defeat, and it rests with us now to keep the glorious record as unsullied as of old; never to unfurl our Union Flag in needless strife, but, when once given to the breeze, to emulate the deeds of our forefathers, and to inscribe on its folds fresh records of duty nobly done.

How the form known as St. Patrick's Cross, Fig. [93], became associated with that worthy is not by any means clear. It is not found amongst the emblems of Saints, and its use is in defiance of all ecclesiastical tradition and custom, as St. Patrick never in the martyrological sense had a cross at all, for though he endured much persecution he was not actually called upon to lay down his life for the Faith. It has been suggested, and with much appearance of probability, that the X-like form of cross, both of the Irish and of the Scotch, is derived from the sacred monogram on the Labarum of Constantine, where the X is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ. This symbolic meaning of the form might readily be adopted in the early Irish Church, and thence be carried by missionaries to Scotland.

A life of St. Patrick was written by Probus, who lived in the seventh century, and another by Jocelin, a Cistercian monk of the twelfth century, and this latter quotes freely from four other lives of the Saint that were written by his disciples.