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
assert 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 substituted 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 analogy 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 shore.
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 circumstances. That it is used,
even officially, in all sorts of circumstances 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 passing mention. Scotland fought
under St. Andrew; Ireland, by a similar analogy, 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 illustration. 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 analogy 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
assorted 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.
[Illustration]
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 patté fitché 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 688.--"Middle" arms of the Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg.
(From Ströhl's _Deutsche Wappenrolle_.)]
Of the heraldic use of the banner in Germany Ströhl 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
_Prachtstücke_ (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 assumes
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}