A Complete Guide to Heraldry Part 57

HERALDIC FLAGS, BANNERS, AND STANDARDS

When it comes to the display of flags, the British-born individual usually makes a hash of the whole business, and flies either the Sovereign's personal coat of arms, which really should only be made use of over a residence of the Sovereign when the Sovereign is actually there, or flown at sea when the Sovereign is on board; or else he uses the national flag, colloquially termed the "Union Jack," which, strictly speaking, and as a matter of law, ought never to be made use of on land except over the residence of the Sovereign in his absence, or on a fortress or other Government building. But recently an official answer has been given in Parliament, declaring what is presumably the pleasure of His Majesty to the effect that the Union Jack is the National Flag, and may be flown as such on land by any British subject. If this is the intention of the Crown, it is a pity that this permission has not been embodied in a Royal warrant.

The banner of St. George, which is a white flag with a plain red cross of St. George throughout, is now appropriated to the Order of the Garter, of which St. George is the patron saint, though I am by no means inclined to a.s.sert that it would be incorrect to make use of it upon a church which happened to be specifically placed under the patronage of St. George.

The white ensign, which is a white flag bearing the cross of St. George and in the upper quarter next to the staff a reproduction of the Union device, belongs to the Royal Navy, and certain privileged individuals to whom the right has been given by a specific warrant. The blue ensign, which is a plain blue flag with the Union device on a canton in the upper corner next the staff, belongs to the Royal Naval Reserve; and the red ensign, which is the same as the former, except that a red flag is subst.i.tuted for the blue one, belongs to the ships of the merchant service. These three flags have been specifically called into being by specific warrants for certain purposes which are stated in these warrants, and these purposes being wholly connected with the sea, neither the blue, the red, nor the white ensign ought to be hoisted on land by anybody. Of course there is no penalty for doing so on {472} land, though very drastic penalties can be enforced for misuse of these ensigns on the water, a step which is taken frequently enough. For a private person to use any one of these three flags on land for a private purpose, the only a.n.a.logy which I can suggest to bring home to people the absurdity of such action would be to instance a private person for his own private pleasure adopting the exact uniform of some regiment whenever he might feel inclined to go bathing in the sea. If he were to do so, he would find under the recent Act that he had incurred the penalty, which would be promptly enforced, for bringing His Majesty's uniform into disrepute. It is much to be wished that the penalties exacted for the wrongful display of these flags at sea should be extended to their abuse on sh.o.r.e.

The development of the Union Jack and the warrants relating to it are dealt with herein by the Rev. J. R. Crawford, M.A., in a subsequent chapter, and I do not propose to further deal with the point, except to draw attention to a proposal, which is very often mooted, that some change or addition to the Union Jack should be made to typify the inclusion of the colonies.

But to begin with, what is the Union Jack? Probably most would be inclined to answer, "The flag of the Empire." It is nothing of the kind. It is in a way stretching the definition to describe it as the King's flag. Certainly the design of interlaced crosses is a badge of the King's, but that badge is of a later origin than the flag.

The flag itself is the fighting emblem of the Sovereign, which the Sovereign has declared shall be used by his soldiers or sailors for fighting purposes under certain specified circ.u.mstances. That it is used, even officially, in all sorts of circ.u.mstances with which the King's warrants are not concerned is beside the matter, for it is to the Royal Warrants that one must refer for the theory of the thing.

Now let us go further back, and trace the "argent, a cross gules," the part which is England's contribution to the Union Jack, which itself is a combination of the "crosses" of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick.

The theory of one is the theory of the three, separately or conjoined.

"Argent, a cross gules" was never the coat of arms of England (except under the Commonwealth, when its use for armorial purposes may certainly be disregarded), and the reason it came to be regarded as the flag of England is simply and solely because fighting was always done under the supposed patronage of some saint, and England fought, _not_ under the arms of England, but under the flag of St. George, the patron saint of England and of the Order of the Garter. The battle-cry "St. George for Merrie England!"

is too well known to need more than the pa.s.sing mention. Scotland fought under St. Andrew; Ireland, by a similar a.n.a.logy, had for its patron saint St. Patrick (if {473} indeed there was a Cross of St. Patrick before one was needed for the Union flag, which is a very doubtful point), and the Union Jack was not the combination of three territorial flags, but the combination of the recognised emblems of the three recognised saints, and though England claimed the sovereignty of France, and for that reason quartered the arms of France, no Englishman bothered about the patronage of St. Denis, and the emblem of St. Denis was never flown in this country. The fact that no change was ever made in the flag to typify Hanover, whilst Hanover duly had its place upon the arms, proves that the flag was recognised to be, and allowed to remain, the emblem of the three patron saints under whose patronage the British fought, and not the badge of any sovereignty or territorial area. If the colonies had already any saint of their own under whose patronage they had fought in bygone days, or in whose name they wished to fight in the future, there might be reason _for including the emblem of that saint_ upon the fighting flag of the Empire; but they have no recognised saintly patrons, and they may just as well fight for our saints as choose others for themselves at so late a day; but having a flag which is a _combination_ of the emblems of three saints, and which contains nothing that is not a part of those emblems, to make any addition heraldic or otherwise to it now would, in my opinion, be best expressed by the following ill.u.s.tration. Imagine three soldiers in full and complete uniform, one English, one Scottish, and one Irish, it being desired to evolve a uniform that should be taken from all three for use by a Union regiment. A tunic from one, trousers from another, and a helmet from a third, might be blended into a very effective and harmonious composite uniform. Following the a.n.a.logy of putting a bordure, which is not the emblem of a saint, round the recognised emblems of the three recognised saints, and considering it to be in keeping because the bordure was heraldic and the emblems heraldic, one might argue, that because a uniform was clothing as was also a ballet-dancer's skirt, therefore a ballet-dancer's skirt outside the whole would be in keeping with the rest of the uniform. For myself I should dislike any addition to the Union device, as much as we should deride the donning of tulle skirts outside their tunics and trousers by the brigade of Guards.

The flag which should float from a church tower should have no more on it than the recognised ecclesiastical emblems of the saint to whom it is dedicated: the keys of St. Peter, the wheel of St. Catherine, the sword of St. Paul, the cross and martlets of St. Edmund, the lily of St. Mary, the emblem of the Holy Trinity, or whatever the emblem may be of the saint in question. (The alternative for a church is the banner of St. George, the patron saint of the realm.) The flags upon public buildings should bear the arms of the corporate bodies to whom those {474} buildings belong. The flag to be flown by a private person, as the law now stands, should bear that person's private arms, if he has any, and if he has not he should be content to forego the pleasures arising from the use of bunting. A private flag should be double its height in length. The entire surface should be occupied by the coat of arms.

These flags of arms are _banners_, and it is quite a misnomer to term the banner of the Royal Arms the Royal Standard. The flags of arms hung over the stalls of the Knights of the Garter, St. Patrick, and the former Knights of the Bath are properly, and are always termed _banners_. The term _standard_ properly refers to the long tapering flag used in battle, and under which an overlord mustered his retainers in battle. This did _not_ display his armorial bearings. Next to the staff usually came the cross of St. George, which was depicted, of course, on a white field. This occupied rather less than one-third of the standard. The remainder of the standard was of the colour or colours of the livery, and thereupon was represented all sorts of devices, usually the badges and sometimes the crest. The motto was usually on transverse bands, which frequently divided the standard into compartments for the different badges. These mottoes from their nature are _not_ war-cries, but undoubtedly relate and belong to the badges with which they appear in conjunction. The whole banner was usually fringed with the livery colours, giving the effect of a bordure compony. The use of standards does not seem, except for the ceremonial purposes of funerals, to have survived the Tudor period, this doubtless being the result of the creation of the standing army in the reign of Henry VIII. The few exotic standards, _e.g._, remaining from the Jacobite rebellion, seldom conform to the old patterns, but although the shape is altered, the artistic character largely remains in the regimental colours of the present day with their a.s.sorted regimental badges and scrolls with the names of battle honours.

With the recent revival of the granting of badges the standard has again been brought into use as the vehicle to carry the badge (Plate VIII.). The arms are now placed next the staff, and upon the rest of the field the badge is repeated or alternated with the crest. Badges and standards are now granted to any person already possessing a right to arms and willing to pay the necessary fees.

PLATE VIII.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The armorial use of the banner in connection with the display of heraldic achievements is very limited in this country. In the case of the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava the banner or flag is an integral and unchangeable part of the heraldic supporters, and in Ross-of-Bladensburg, _e.g._, it is similarly an integral part of the crest. In the warrant of augmentation granted to H.M. Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain on her marriage, banners of the Royal Arms of {475} England were placed in the paws of her supporters.

Other cases where arms have been depicted on banners are generally no more than matters of artistic design; but in the arms of Scotland as matriculated in Lyon Register for King Charles II. the supporters are accompanied by banners, the dexter being of the arms of Scotland, and the sinister the banner of St. Andrew. These banners possess rather a different character, and approach very closely to the German use. The same practice has been followed in the seals of the Duchy of Lancaster, inasmuch as on the obverse of the seal of George IV. and the seal of Queen Victoria the Royal supporters hold banners of the arms of England and of the Duchy (_i.e._ England, a label for difference). James I. on his Great Seal had the banners of Cadwallader (azure, a cross patte fitche or) and King Edgar (azure, a cross patonce between four martlets or), and on the Great Seal of Charles I. the dexter supporter holds a banner of St. George, and the sinister a banner of St. Andrew.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 688.--"Middle" arms of the Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg.

(From Strohl's _Deutsche Wappenrolle_.)]

Of the heraldic use of the banner in Germany Strohl writes:--

"The banner appears in a coat of arms, either in the hands or paws of the supporters (Fig. 688), also set up behind the shield, or the pavilion, as, for instance, in the larger achievement of his Majesty the German Emperor, in the large achievement of the kingdom of Prussia, of the dukedom of Saxe-Altenburg, and further in the Arms of State of Italy, Russia, Roumania, &c.

"Banners on the shield as charges, or on the helmet as a crest, are here, of course, not in question, but only those banners which serve as _Prachtstucke_ (appendages of magnificence).

"The banners of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are long and narrow, and frequently run in stripes, like battlements. However, in {476} the second half of the thirteenth century flags were also to be met with, with the longer side attached to the stick. Later on the banners became more square, and show on the top a long strip, generally of another colour, the _Schwenkel_ (_i.e._ something that flourishes), waves to and fro. To bear a red _Schwenkel_ was a special privilege, similar to the right of sealing with red wax.

"The ecclesiastical banner has three points, and is provided with rings on the top in order that it may be fastened to the stick by them, in an oblique position.

"The banner always represents the field of the shield, and a.s.sumes accordingly its tincture. The charges of the shield should be placed upon the banner without the outline of a shield, and the edge against the flag-staff is considered the dexter; it follows from this that the figure must be turned towards it.

"For instance, if the shield bear the following arms, argent an eagle gules, the same figure, suited to the size of the flag, appears on the banner, with its head turned towards the staff. If it be wished to represent only the _colours_ of the arms upon the flag, that of the charge is placed above, and that of the field below. Thus, for example, the Prussian flag is black and white, corresponding to the black eagle on the silver field; the flag of Hohenzollern is white and black, corresponding to their coat of arms, quartered silver and black, because in the latter case, so soon as a heraldic representation is available, from the position of the coloured fields, the correct order of the tinctures is determined." {477}

CHAPTER x.x.xI

MARKS OF CADENCY

The manner in which cadency is indicated in heraldic emblazonment forms one of the most important parts of British armory, but our own intricate and minutely detailed systems are a purely British development of armory. I do not intend by the foregoing remark to a.s.sert that the occasional use, or even, as in some cases, the constant use of altered arms for purposes of indicating cadency is unknown on the Continent, because different branches of one family are constantly found using, for the purposes of distinction, variations of the arms appertaining to the head of their house; in France especially the bordure has been extensively used, but the fact nevertheless remains that in no other countries is there found an organised system or set of rules for the purpose. Nor is this idea of the indication of cadency wholly a modern development, though some, in fact most, of the rules presently in force are no doubt a result of modern requirements, and do not date back to the earliest periods of heraldry in this country.

The obligation of cadet lines to difference their arms was recognised practically universally in the fourteenth century; and when, later, the systematic use of differencing seemed in danger of being ignored, it was made the subject of specific legislation. In the treatise of ZYPOEUS, _de Not.i.tia juris Belgici_, lib. xii., quoted also in MENETRIER, _Recherches du Blazon_, p. 218, we find the following:--

"Ut secundo et ulterius geniti, quinimo primogeniti vivo patre, integra insignia non gerant, sed aliqua nota distincta, ut perpetuo linae dignosci possint, et ex qua quique descendant, donec anteriores defecerint. Exceptis Luxenburgis et Gueldris, quibus non sunt ii mores." (The exception is curious.)

The choice of these _brisures_, as marks of difference are often termed, was, however, left to the persons concerned; and there is, consequently, a great variety of differences or differentiation marks which seem to have been used for the purpose. The term "brisure" is really French, whilst the German term for these marks is "Beizeichen."

British heraldry, on the contrary, is remarkable for its use of two {478} distinct sets of rules--the English and the Scottish--the Irish system being identical with the former.

To understand the question of cadency it is necessary to revert to the status of a coat of arms in early periods. In the first chapter we dealt with the origin of armory; and in a subsequent chapter with the status of a coat of arms in Great Britain, and it will therefrom have been apparent that arms, and a right to them, developed in this country as an adjunct of, or contemporaneously with, the extension of the feudal system. Every landowner was at one time required to have his seal--presumably, of arms--and as a result arms were naturally then considered to possess something of a territorial character. I do not by this mean to say that the arms belonged to the land and were transferable with the sale and purchase thereof. There never was in this country a period at which such an idea held; nor were arms originally entirely personal or individual. They belonged rather to a position half-way between the two. They were the arms of a given family, originating because that family held land and accepted the consequent responsibilities thereto belonging, but the arms appertained for the time being to the member of that family who owned the land, and that this is the true idea of the former status of a coat of arms is perhaps best evidenced by the Grey and Hastings controversy, which engaged the attention of the Court of Chivalry for several years prior to 1410. The decision and judgment in the case gave the undifferenced arms of Hastings to the heir-general (Grey de Ruthyn), the heir-male (Sir Edward Hastings) being found only capable of bearing the arms of Hastings subject to some mark of difference.

This case, and the case of Scrope and Grosvenor, in which the king's award was that the bordure was not sufficient difference for a stranger in blood, being only the mark of a cadet, show clearly that the status of a coat of arms in early times was that in its undifferenced state it belonged to one person only for the time being, and that person the head of the family, though it should be noted that the term "Head of the Family" seems to have been interpreted into the one who held the lands of the family--whether he were heir-male or heir-general being apparently immaterial.

This much being recognised, it follows that some means were needed to be devised to differentiate the armorial bearings of the younger members of the family. Of course the earliest definite instances of any attempt at a systematic "differencing" for cadency which can be referred to are undoubtedly those cases presented by the arms of the younger members of the Royal Family in England. These cases, however, it is impossible to take as precedents. Royal Arms have always, from the very earliest times, been a law unto themselves, {479} subject only to the will of the Sovereign, and it is neither safe nor correct to deduce precedents to be applied to the arms of subjects from proved instances concerning the Royal Arms.

Probably, apart from these, the earliest mark of cadency which is to be met with in heraldry is the label (Fig. 689) used to indicate the eldest son, and this mark of difference dates back far beyond any other regularised methods applicable to "younger" sons. The German name for the label is "Turnierkragen," _i.e._ Tournament Collar, which may indicate the origin of this curious figure. Probably the use of the label can be taken back to the middle or early part of the thirteenth century, but the opportunity and necessity of marking the arms of the heir-apparent temporarily, he having the expectation of eventually succeeding to the undifferenced arms, is a very different matter to the other opportunities for the use of marks of cadency. The lord and his heir were the two most important members of the family, and all others sunk their ident.i.ty in their position in the household of their chief unless they were established by marriage, or otherwise, in lordships of their own, in which cases they are usually found to have preferred the arms of the family from whom they inherited the lordships they enjoyed; and their ident.i.ties being to such a large extent overlooked, the necessity for any system of marking the arms of a younger son was not so early apparent as the necessity for marking the arms of the heir.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 689.--The label.]

The label does not appear to have been originally confined exclusively to the heir. It was at first the only method of differencing known, and it is not therefore to be wondered at that we find that it was frequently used by other cadets, who used it with no other meaning than to indicate that they were not the Head of the House. It has, consequently, in some few cases [for example, in the arms of Courtenay (Fig. 246), Babington, and Barrington] become stereotyped as a charge, and is continuously and unchangeably used as such, whereas doubtless it may have been no more originally than a mere mark of cadency. The label was originally drawn with its upper edge identical with the top of the shield (Fig. 520), but later its position on the shield was lowered. The number of points on the label was at first without meaning, a five-pointed label occurring in Fig. 690 and a seven-pointed one in Fig. 235.

In the Roll of Caerlaverock the label is repeatedly referred to. Of Sir MAURICE DE BERKELEY it is expressly declared that

"... un label de asur avoit, Porce qe ces peres vivoit."

{480}

Sir PATRICK DUNBAR, son of the Earl of LOTHIAN (_i.e._ of MARCH), then bore arms similar to his father, with the addition of a label "azure." On the other hand, Sir JOHN DE SEGRAVE is said to bear his deceased father's arms undifferenced, while his younger brother NICHOLAS carries them with a label "gules"; and in the case of EDMUND DE HASTINGS the label is also a.s.signed to a younger brother. Further proof of its being thus borne by cadets is furnished by the evidence in the GREY and HASTINGS controversy in the reign of HENRY IV., from which it appeared that the younger line of the HASTINGS family had for generations differenced the paternal coat by a label of three points; and, as various knights and esquires had deposed to this label being the cognisance of the nearest heir, it was argued that the defendant's ancestors would not have borne their arms in this way had they not been the reputed next heirs of the family of the Earl of PEMBROKE. The label will be seen in Figs. 690, 691, and 692, though its occurrence in the last case in each of the quarters is most unusual. The argent label on the arms for the Sovereignty of Man is a curious confirmation of the reservation of an argent label for Royalty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 690.--Arms of John de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln (d. 1240): Quarterly, or and gules, a bend sable, and a label argent. (MS. Cott. Nero, D. 1.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 691.--Arms of John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln (son of John, Duke of Suffolk), d. 1487: Quarterly, 1 and 4, azure, a fess between three leopards' faces or; 2 and 3, per fess gules and argent, a lion rampant queue fourche or, armed and langued azure, over all a label argent.

(From his seal.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 692.--Arms of William Le Scrope, Earl of Wiltes (d.

1399): Quarterly, 1 and 4, the arms of the Isle of Man, a label argent; 2 and 3, azure, a bend or, a label gules. (From Willement's Roll, sixteenth century.)]

WILLIAM RUTHVEN, Provost of PERTH, eldest son of the Master of RUTHVEN, bore a label of four points in 1503. Two other instances may be noticed of a label borne by a powerful younger brother. One is WALTER STEWART, Earl of MENTEITH, the fourth High Steward, in 1292; and we find the label again on the seal of his son ALEXANDER STEWART, Earl of MENTEITH.

At Caerlaverock, HENRY of Lancaster, brother and successor of THOMAS, Earl of LANCASTER--

"Portait les armes son frere Au beau bastoun sans label,"