The Flags of the World Part 2

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 Caesari." 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 foedari"--"It is better to die than {25} 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.bles he represented himself with shield and sword, and standing in a ship "full royally {26} 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 pa.s.sed 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 ill.u.s.trations," 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 {27} 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 _Ill.u.s.trated 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 _regime_ 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. {28} 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 j.a.pan 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.

{29}

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, Na.s.sau, 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 subst.i.tuted 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 {30} 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 a.s.signed 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 a.s.signing 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 a.s.serted) 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 Coeur-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. {31}

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 a.s.serted 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 {32} piece, called a florin, which has lately been issued, bears upon the reverse four crowned shields, the first or uppermost being the three lions pa.s.sant 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 pet.i.tioners 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 doc.u.ment 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 a.s.sociation of the two peoples; an ancient writer, Nisbet, takes the same view, as he affirms that "the Tressure fleurie encompa.s.ses 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 c.u.m 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 ent.i.tled "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 {33} 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. subst.i.tuted 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. subst.i.tuted 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] {34}

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, a.s.signed 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, _semee_ 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 {35} since pa.s.sed 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 Angliae, Scotiae, Franciae et Hiberniae Rex_."

During the Protectorate, both the Union Flag and the Standard underwent several modifications, but the form that the personal Standard of Cromwell finally a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sured, 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 Na.s.sau, 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 {36} 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 const.i.tution of the fighting force pa.s.sed away, the use of private banners disappeared, and men, instead of coming to the field as the retainers of some great n.o.bleman 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 n.o.ble could change the fortunes of the day by withdrawing his va.s.sals 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]