_THE SCOTTISH JACK._
From a very early period St. Andrew has been esteemed as the patron
saint of Scotland, and held in veneration quite as strong as that
entertained in England for St. George. The "saltire," or diagonal cross
of St. Andrew (12), shaped like the letter X is attributed
to the tradition that the saint, considering himself unworthy to be
crucified on a cross of the same shape as that on which his Saviour
had suffered, had, by his own choice, been crucified with legs and
arms extended upon a cross of this shape, and, therefore, it has been
accepted as the emblem of his martyrdom.
[Illustration: 12. ST. ANDREW'S JACK.]
The "Scottish Jack" (Pl I., fig. 2) is a white oblong cross
upon a blue ground. This is the banner of St. Andrew (12), and in
heraldic language is described as "_Azure, a saltire argent_" (on azure
blue, a silver-white saltire).
How St. Andrew came to be adopted as the patron saint of Scotland is
a subject of much varying conjecture. It is said that in the early
centuries, about A.D. 370, some relics of the apostle St. Andrew were
being brought to Scotland by some Greek monks, and although the vessel
carrying them was wrecked and became a total loss, the sacred bones
were brought safe to shore at the port in the County of Fife, still
called _St. Andrews_, where a church was erected to his memory.
The most favoured tradition as to the date of his authorized adoption
as a patron saint is that it occurred in A.D. 987, when Hungus, king
of the Picts, was being attacked by Athelstane, the king of the West
Saxons,[37] Achaius, king of the Scots, with 10,000 of his Scottish
subjects, came to the relief of Hungus, and the two kings joined their
forces to repel the Southern invaders. The Scottish leaders, face to
face with so formidable a foe, were passing the night in prayer to
God and St. Andrew, when upon the background of the blue sky there
appeared, formed in white clouds, the figure of the white cross of the
martyr saint. Reanimated by this answering sign, the Scottish soldiers
entered the fray with enthusiastic valour, and beset the English with
such ardour as to drive them in confusion from the field, leaving their
king, Athelstane, behind them dead among the slain. Since that time the
white saltire cross, upon a blue ground, the banner of St. Andrew, has
been carried by the Scots as their national ensign.
[37] Sir Harris Nicholas: "History of the Order of the Thistle."
This was the flag carried by the great Scottish national hero,
Robert-the-Bruce, whose valour won for him the crown of Scotland,
and whose descendants, the earls of Elgin, still bear his banner on
their coatof-arms. At Bannockburn, in 1314, this emblem of Bruce rose
victorious over Edward II. and his stolid Englishmen. Its use was
continued in 1385, when the Scots, stirred up and aided by Charles VI.
of France, invaded and despoiled the border counties of England, in
which expeditions both they and their French auxiliaries wore a white
St. Andrew's cross upon their jacques, both before and behind, in order
that they might distinguish the soldiers of their combined companies
from the forces of the foe.[38]
[38] Perry: "Rank and Badges."
But St. Andrew's flag was not always victorious. At Chevy Chase and
Flodden Field it suffered defeat, but only in such wise as to prove the
truth of the warning motto of the prickly Scotch thistle, "_Nemo me
impune lacessit_"--(No one may touch me with impunity).
The Scottish Jack in all these early centuries, unlike its English
compeer, does not appear to have been carried by Scotsmen far afield,
nor in expeditions across the seas. On land, the Scots used it mainly
as a sign of recognition during the forays which they kept up with
unceasing vigour on the neighbouring kingdoms of England and Ireland;
and at sea its scene of action was kept measurably near to their own
shores.
Scotland, being so far removed from the fleets of the southern nations
of Europe, did not need a regular navy, and never had one of any
size,[39] but her far northern coasts, indented with deep bays and
bordered by wild fastnesses, adapted themselves admirably to the use
to which they were mainly put, of being the lair from which hardy,
venturesome freebooters, in those times called "sea rovers," sailed
forth in their "talle shippes" (13), and pounced down upon the vessels
of the passersby. The exploits of some of these sailors, under the St.
Andrew's Jack, crop out from time to time with splendid audacity in
the history of the centuries. One "Mercer, a Scottish rover," during
the reign of Richard II. of England, so harried the merchant shipping
of England that, in 1378, Alderman John Philpot, "a worshipful citizen
of London," equipped an expedition at his own expense to cramp the
energies of the marauder, and meeting Mercer and fifteen Spanish ships,
which were acting with him, brought the whole fleet, "_besides great
riches which were found on board_," in triumph into port at Scarborough
in Yorkshire. Philpot was haled before the English royal authorities
for having dared "_to set forth a navy of men-of-war without the
advice of the King's Council_," but the end was considered to have
justified the means, and the bold citizen, who by his own action had
put down the annoyance with which the officers of the realm should have
dealt, was, after having himself stoutly berated the Council for their
sluggishness, let go free.
[39] In 1707, when, at the time of the completed union under Queen
Anne, the whole navy of the Scots was transferred to the navy of Great
Britain, it consisted of only "three small ships."
[Illustration: 13. SCOTCH "TALLE SHIPPE," 16TH CENTURY.
(From a painting by Vandyck.)]
Sir Andrew Wood, of Leith, who for a long time pillaged the English
ships and set the navy of Henry VII. at defiance, was another doughty
champion of the St. Andrew's cross.
Growing bolder in his defiance, he challenged the English Royal Navy
to a contest. The challenge was accepted, and three chosen ships were
sent to meet him. These he overmastered, and carried off his prizes and
their crews to Dundee, from where, after the wounded had been cared
for, and the damages of the vessels repaired, James IV. of Scotland
returned the ships and their men to Henry, saying, "_the contest had
been for honour, not for booty_."[40]
[40] Pinkerton: "History of Scotland."
But the greatest hero of them all, the one whose deeds have woven
themselves into the folklore of the Scottish race, was Sir Andrew
Barton, who in the time of Henry VIII. not only plundered his English
neighbours, but also took toll of the ships of all other nations
without regard to their flag, making himself the terror of the North
Seas. An old ballad tells in quaint style what an English merchant of
Newcastle, whose ships had fallen into the hands of Barton, is said to
have reported to the English Admiral, who was in charge of the "Narrow
Seas":
"Hast thou not herde, Lord Howard bold,
As thou hast sailed by day and by night,
Of a Scottish rover on the seas?
Men call hym Sir Andrewe Barton, Knyte?
"He is brasse within and steel withoute,
With bemes on his toppe-castle strong,
And eighteen piece of ordnaunce
He carries on each side along.
"And he hath a pinnace derely dight,
St. Andrew's cross yat is his guide;
His pinnace bereth nine score men
And fifteen cannons on each side.
"Were ye twenty ships and he but one,
I swear by kirk, and bower and hall,
He would overcome them every one
If once his bemes they do down fall."
Sir Andrew was the last of the freebooters, as the rise of the navy of
Henry VIII., and the union of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland
by James I. under one crown, put an end to these reprisals by the
subjects of the one nation on the other; yet, as we shall see, it was
the remnants of these very rivalries thus engendered between the single
cross flags of St. Andrew and St. George which led to these national
Jacks of the two nations being afterwards joined together to form one
flag.
St. Andrew is also venerated by the Russians as a national saint, their
tradition being that it was through the Apostle St. Andrew that the
gospel of Christianity had been brought to their people. Their highest
order of knighthood, created by Peter the Great, in 1698, is the Order
of St. Andrew, and the national flag of Russia, borne by all their
people and on their imperial navy, is the St. Andrew's cross. It is
also used on the masthead of their war vessels to indicate the rank of
an admiral.
It will be remembered that the Russians have transposed the colours of
the banner of St. George from a red cross on a white ground, as on the
English Jack, to be on theirs a white cross on a red ground. So also
they have transposed the colours on their St. Andrew's flag to be a
blue cross on a white ground instead of a white cross on a blue ground
as on the Scottish flag.