_Early English, Scottish, and Irish Flags_
(i) ENGLAND
So far as may be judged from the scanty records that remain, the
ancient inhabitants of these islands do not seem to have known the use
of flags until the Romans made them acquainted with their military
_signa_. Adopted by the Saxons either directly from the Romans before
they left their homes on the continent or from the Britons whom they
subdued, flags formed, from the seventh century onwards, an important
part of the regalia. Speaking of Eadwin King of Northumbria, under date
628 A.D., the Venerable Bede says:
his dignity was so great throughout his dominions that banners
(vexilla) were not only borne before him in battle, but even in
time of peace when he rode about his cities and towns or provinces
the standard bearer was wont to go before him. And when he walked
about the streets that sort of standard which the Romans call Tufa,
and the English Tuuf, was borne before him[64].
A few years later, on the translation of the bones of King Oswald,
the royal vexillum of purple and gold (_auro et purpura compositum_)
was placed above the tomb, a practice that was followed through many
centuries.
The Saxons of Wessex adopted as their principal war standard the
dragon, which in various forms was destined to appear at many crucial
moments in English history. At the battle of Burford in 752, according
to Henry of Huntingdon, the Wessex standard was a golden dragon, while
the Mercians used the vexillum[65].
The Danish vikings, who commenced their descents upon the southern
coasts of England in the middle of the ninth century, had as their
ensign a raven embroidered in a flag, which appears to have been used
for divination. In the year 878 Hubba
the brother of Hingwar and Halfdene, with 23 ships ... sailed to
Devon, where with 1200 others he met with a miserable death, being
slain before the castle of Cynuit[66]. There (the Christians[67])
gained a very large booty, and amongst other things the flag
called Raven[68], for they say that the three sisters of Hingwar
and Hubba, daughters of Lodobroch, wove that flag and got it ready
in one day. They say moreover that in every battle wherever that
flag went before them, if they were to gain the victory a live
raven would appear flying in the middle of the flag, but if they
were doomed to be defeated it would hang down motionless, and this
often proved to be so[69].
From this description it is clear that the raven flag was attached by
one side to a staff, instead of by the top to a crosspiece like the
Roman vexillum. We meet with it next at the beginning of the eleventh
century, when the Danish hordes again invaded England under Sweyn and
Cnut and conquered it. The anonymous author of the _Encomium_ of Queen
Emma, the wife of Cnut, gives a description of the flag and attributes
to it magical properties, in which he is good enough not to expect his
readers to believe. He says:
For they had a flag of wondrous portent, which, though I may well
believe this to be incredible to the reader, yet because it is true
I will mention it in this truthful account. Of a truth, although it
was woven of quite plain white silk and there was no image of any
kind in it, yet in time of war there always appeared in it a raven,
as though it were woven thereon, which when its own party was
victorious appeared with open beak, shaking its wings and moving
its legs, but when that party was defeated, very quiet and with its
whole body hanging down (_toto corpore demissus_)[70].
Possibly this flag was triangular, for in the early years of the tenth
century the viking kings of Northumbria introduced into the reverse
of their coins a triangular flag affixed laterally to a staff[71].
The top edge of this was horizontal and the lower, which was inclined
upward from the staff, was heavily fringed. In the field was a
small cross, which had--possibly under the influence of a nominal
christianity--replaced the raven, although that bird is found on the
obverse of some of the later coins[72]. These coins are of especial
interest to us as they contain the earliest representation of a flag
of any of the northern nations. This triangular flag appears first in
a coin of Sihtric, who, after being driven from Dublin by the Irish in
920, reigned at York and died about 927, and later in a coin of Regnald
(King of Northumbria in 943) and upon coins of Anlaf (949-952)[73].
It is about this period that flags first become associated with
particular saints. Among the treasures sent by Hugh the Great, Duke
of the Franks, to King Æthelstan in 927 was a banner of St Maurice,
which is said to have been of especial assistance to Charlemagne in
his Spanish wars[74]. We do not know what form this banner took,
presumably it was a representation of the saint, but it is of
especial significance to us that this saint had been a soldier, for
it enables us in some measure to understand why St George had such an
extraordinary vogue a few centuries later.
At the battle of Assandune (1016) in which the English under Eadmund
Ironside were defeated by the Danes under Sweyn and Cnut, the Raven was
opposed to the Dragon and to another ensign described as a "Standard."
This is the first occasion on which an English king appears in the
field with two different "standards," and it is of interest to note
that his place in battle was between them[75].
It is to be regretted that Henry of Huntingdon did not explain what
this royal "Standard," for which he has no exact Latin equivalent, was
like. He tells us that Harold also had a "Standard" (_signum regium
quod vocatur Standard_) at the Battle of Hastings, and that a band
of Norman knights bound themselves by oath to seize it: an effort in
which they were successful, although many were slain. This Standard was
apparently the "Dragon" seen in the Bayeux Tapestry in the hands of
Harold's standard-bearer[76]. According to William of Malmesbury[77],
Harold, who was fighting on foot, placed himself with his brothers
near his _vexillum_, which was in the likeness of a man fighting,
and was sumptuously adorned with gold and precious stones. After the
battle William presented it to the Pope. Probably this fighting man
was the emblem of the South-Saxons, for on the Sussex Downs above
Wilmington--once the home of Earl Godwin, Harold's father--may be seen
the outline of a gigantic figure armed with a staff or lance in either
hand[78]. Evidently Harold's position was between the Dragon standard,
and his personal ensign, a position similar to that occupied "according
to custom" by Eadmund fifty years before.
Of these two the "signum regium," or principal "standard" appears to
have been fixed in a central position or rallying point, while the
other, the Dragon, was carried in the hands of a standard-bearer chosen
for his personal strength and prowess. In September of the year 1191
when Richard was fighting in the Holy Land in company with the French
under the Duke of Burgundy, and the crusading army was drawn up for
battle, Richard fixed his standard in the midst of the forces and
handed the Dragon to Peter des Preaux to carry, despite the claim of
Robert Trussebut to bear it by hereditary right[79]. By this time the
royal "standard" supported an heraldic banner that displayed the lion
which Richard placed upon his first great seal and which on his return
to England he multiplied by three; but why did a symbol so obviously
pagan as the Dragon survive the Conquest and that greater attention to
religion--or at any rate to its outward observance--that the Conquest
had brought in its train? William of Normandy had conquered England
beneath the aegis of the gonfanon with golden cross that the Pope had
blessed for him, yet we hear no more of it. The battle of the Standard
in 1138 was fought around a ship's mast bearing aloft the banners of St
Peter, St John of Beverley and St Wilfred of Ripon. The very crusade
in which Richard was engaged had been inaugurated with the solemn
assumption of coloured crosses by the combatants at the hands of the
Archbishop of Tyre, white for the English, red for the French, and
green for the men of Flanders[80]. Yet the standard under which the
English crusaders were led to the attack was none of these, but the
same Dragon under which the Parthians had fought the Romans and the men
of Wessex had beaten the men of Mercia. And the chronicler who records
this fact was an eye-witness.
When, in the twenty-eighth year of his reign, Henry III was about to
visit the Abbey at Westminster, which he was rebuilding,
he commanded Edward FitzOdo to make a Dragon in the manner of a
Standard or Ensign of red Samit, to be embroidered with gold, and
his tongue to appear as though continually moving and his eyes of
Saphires or other stones agreeable to him[81]
which was to be placed in the Abbey Church against the King's coming
thither. What then was its religious significance?
But we must leave this question to the student of folklore[82].
Suffice it to say that the Dragon was borne in the English army at
Lewes in 1216, at Creçy in 1346, and finally at Bosworth Field in 1485,
whence, in company with two banners, one containing the image of St
George and the other a Dun Cow, it was carried in state to St Paul's
Cathedral. Under all the Tudor sovereigns the Dragon formed one of
the supporters of the Royal Arms, it appeared on the streamers of the
_Henri Grace à Dieu_, and to this day it supports the Arms of the City
of London and gives a name to one of the Officers of Arms--Rouge Dragon.
Before we turn aside to retrace the steps by which St George became the
patron saint of England and the red cross on white ground England's
national flag, we must first briefly notice the other saintly banners
with which, for a time, it contested the pre-eminence. Mention has
already been made of the "Standard" from which the battle of 1138 took
its name. This standard consisted of the mast of a ship fixed on a
four-wheeled frame. At the top was placed a silver pyx containing a
consecrated wafer, and beneath this were suspended the banners of St
Peter (of York), St John (of Beverley), and St Wilfred (of Ripon).
The entirely religious nature of this standard is no doubt due to the
fact that the English levies had been gathered under the direction of
Thurstan, the aged Archbishop of York[83].
The banner of St John of Beverley was again in evidence during the
Scottish wars of Edward I, and during these same wars there appears
for the first time the banner of another north of England saint, St
Cuthbert of Durham. Both these banners were carried by ecclesiastics,
who were paid by the king for their services. In addition to these,
which seem to have been carried only in the Northern wars, there were
in use, as appears from the Wardrobe Accounts for 1299-1300[84], five
other banners: two of the Arms of England, one of the arms of St
George, one of the arms of St Edmund, and one of the arms of St Edward.
A description of the banner of St Cuthbert has been preserved for us in
a MS. of the sixteenth century[85]:
There was also a Baner ... called Sanct Cuthbertes Baner which was
five yards in length. All the pippes of it were of sylver to be
sleaven on a long speire staffe, and on the overmost pype on the
hight of yt was a ffyne lytle silver crosse, and a goodly Banner
cloth perteyned to yt. And in the mydes of the banner cloth was
all of white velvett, halfe a yerd squayre every way, and a faire
crose of Read velvett over yt, and within ye said white velvett was
ye holy Relique, ye Corporax that ye holy man Sancte Cuthbert did
cover the chalyce withall when he sayd mess. And the Resydewe of ye
Banner clothe was all of Read velvett, imbrodered all with grene
sylke and goulde most sumtuousle.
The arms of England were at this period the three leopards (or lions):
those of St George the well-known red cross. St Edmund's arms are
believed to have been three golden crowns on a blue field[86], those of
St Edward (Edward the Confessor) were, also on a blue field, a cross
flory between five martlets, gold[87]. Some of Edward's coins show on
the reverse a cross between four small birds that may be taken to be
martlets, the heraldic swallow without feet or beak. These alone of all
the saintly "arms" appear to have had any direct connection with the
man with whose name they are associated.
Under Henry V there was added to these a banner emblematic of the Holy
Trinity[88], which was carried at Agincourt. In addition to these we
hear of a banner of St William, carried in the Earl of Surrey's army in
the north in 1513.
It will have been noticed that, with the exception of the two apostles,
only one of these saints, St George, is of foreign extraction. How did
it come to pass that this foreign saint completely eclipsed those who,
in the literal sense of the word, were strictly national?
Few saints have been so universally honoured as St George, and yet
there is not a saint in the calendar about whose life so little
that is authentic is known. He was a soldier who attained the crown
of martyrdom during the reign of Diocletian. That is the extent of
our knowledge, and on this meagre foundation the wildest, the most
incredible legends have been embroidered. Even the date of his death is
not certain[89], yet from an early age he was one of the most popular
of saints, especially in the East, where he was revered by Mahometan
and Christian alike. And here it is to be noted that he is not the
George of Cappadocia, the Arian Bishop of Alexandria who met with the
death his acts had amply merited at the hands of the populace in the
year 361, although so eminent an authority as Gibbon[90] has declared
them one and the same.
The cult of St George spread from East to West. In the fifth century he
was honoured in Gaul. The monastery at Thetford, founded in the reign
of Canute, was dedicated to him[91], and the churches of St George
at Fordington (now a part of Dorchester) and Southwark were founded
before the Norman Conquest. But although his feast day (23rd April) had
been included by the Venerable Bede in his _Martyrologium_ it does not
appear to have been generally observed in England till a later date.
One of the payments in the Misae roll of 14 John (1213)[92] is dated
as the day before the feast of St George, and this feast was included
among the minor festivals by the Council at Oxford in 1222[93], yet it
is not mentioned in the Constitutions of the Bishop of Worcester in
1240[94]. It is included in the list of saints' days drawn up by the
Synod of Exeter in 1287, but it is not included in lists drawn up by
Archbishops of Canterbury in 1332 and 1400, nor in one drawn up by the
Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1342[95].
The explanation of this lies in the fact that St George was not a
churchman's but a soldier's saint. It is to our crusading kings,
Richard and Edward I, and to their followers that he owes a popularity
that extends to numbers that do not reverence saints and would be hard
put to it to name offhand half a dozen others.
St George became especially popular among the crusaders, and his
miraculous intervention was believed to have decided victory in their
favour on several occasions. The early sculptured tympanum over the
south door of St George's Church at Fordington is supposed to represent
the saint intervening in behalf of the Christians at the battle of
Antioch in 1098. The same subject occurs in a mural painting in the
church at Hardham in Sussex[96]. Both painting and sculpture are
assigned to the twelfth century. In both instances the saint is on
horseback and carries a lance; with the butt end he strikes down the
foe. Near the head of the lance is a gonfanon the fly of which is split
into long tails. No sign of the cross now remains in the painting, but
in the sculpture it is plainly visible at the head of this gonfanon.
As the earliest representation in England of St George's flag, this
sculpture is of especial interest.
As already remarked in the previous chapter, the date at which the
red cross on a white field first became associated with St George is
not known. Jacobus de Voragine, the thirteenth century author of the
_Legenda Aurea_, quotes an earlier history of Antioch as his authority
for the statement that at the Siege of Jerusalem (1099) the Christians
hesitated to ascend the scaling ladders until St George, clad in white
armour marked with the red cross, appeared and beckoned them on.
The date at which St George's cross became accepted as the English
national flag has also yet to be ascertained. It does not appear to
have been used as such at the time of the Third Crusade. In January,
1188, when Henry II and his followers enrolled themselves in response
to the preaching of William of Tyre, they received white crosses, while
the French took red and the Flemings green ones[97]. At first sight it
may seem that there is some error in this statement. We know that at
a later period the English had adopted the red cross on white ground
while the French made use of a white one on a blue ground. Cleirac[98],
writing in 1661 and knowing of no other authority for the statement
than Matthew Paris, attempted to solve this difficulty by "restoring"
the text and interchanging "red" and "white," but this simple expedient
is not allowed to the modern student. The statement occurs not only
in Matthew Paris, who had probably taken it from the Abbot Benedict's
_Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi_, but also in the works of John de
Oxenedes, Bartholomew de Cotton, Roger de Wendover and Ralph de Diceto.
It is not probable that so many contemporary, or nearly contemporary,
writers would make or repeat such a statement if it were erroneous.
Time and circumstances have not permitted of an absolutely exhaustive
examination of the public records, but after a lengthy search in all
likely places the author has not been able to find any mention of the
"arms" or flag of St George in English earlier than the year 1277.
In the roll of accounts[99] relating to the Welsh War of that year
(the fifth of Edward I) occur payments to Admetus, the king's tailor,
for the purchase of white and coloured cloth, buckram, etc., for the
manufacture of pennoncels and bracers "of the arms of St George." In
the original these entries have all been struck through, probably
because they were accounted for elsewhere in some roll now perished.
While this account only mentions three streamers of the king's arms,
it includes the comparatively large number of 340 pennoncels of St
George's arms. It is probable that banners of the king's arms and of
the arms of St Edward and St Edmund were also in use, together with
banners of the feudal lords taking the field, just as we find them in
use twenty-three years later at the siege of Carlaverock[100], but
it is evident from the entries above referred to that the arms of St
George were in great, if not exclusive, demand for the smaller flags,
which in some cases are expressly stated to be for the king's foot
soldiers (_pro peditibus regis_).
We have, therefore, in determining the probable date of the
introduction of St George's cross as an English national flag to take
into account the following facts.
In the year 1188 the red cross was not a mark of English nationality,
although it was certainly in use in the East and by the Genoese as a
religious emblem associated with St George.
In 1213 the feast of St George was recognised by the Court officials
and used in dating payments, but was not yet generally observed by the
people.
In 1222 this feast was included among the minor festivals to be
observed in the English Church, but its omission in later lists shows
that it was not universally observed and that no special importance was
attached to it.
The cross of St George is definitely referred to in 1277 in
circumstances that leave no doubt that it was then in use in England as
a national emblem.
We must now briefly recall the state of affairs in England during those
ninety years. After Henry II assumed the cross in 1188 his quarrel with
Philip of France and with his own son prevented him from proceeding
to the Holy Land. Richard, who succeeded him in 1189, spent only six
months of his ten years' reign in England. On his return in 1194 after
his long absence at the Crusades and in captivity, he spent only two
months in this country and then went to France, where the remainder of
his life was spent. The whole of John's reign was spent in quarrels
with his subjects. Henry III, throughout his long reign of fifty-six
years, took up an attitude which was decidedly un-English. On the other
hand, Edward I is generally recognised by historians as the first king
of "English" nationality. At the date of his succession to the throne
he was absent at the Crusades, and as the country was enjoying peace at
the hands of those entrusted with the administration of the government
he did not return to England until 1274. This peace was not broken
until the attempt of Llewellyn to secure the absolute independence of
Wales brought on the Welsh War of 1277.
Having all these circumstances in view, it seems on the whole probable
that the cross of St George, although more or less familiar to the
English, was first erected by Edward I into a national symbol for a
people that, by the incorporation of the foreign elements introduced
at the Norman Conquest (assisted by the loss of the greater part of
the continental possessions of its kings) had at length become a
homogeneous nation. From the entries in the roll above referred to and
from similar entries in later rolls of Edward I it appears that the
cross of St George was almost entirely confined to the pennoncels on
the spears of the foot-soldiers and to the "bracers" which the archers
bore on their left forearms. Why the bracer should be singled out for
this distinction is not clear, but it will be remembered that little
over a hundred years later the bracer of Chaucer's "Yeoman" was a
conspicuous part of his dress.
And in his hond he bar a mighty bowe
* * * * *
Upon his arme he bar a gay bracer
And by his side a swerd and a bokeler[101].
We may suppose that the cross of St George, the simplest and most
conspicuous of all the saintly devices, was chosen as the distinctive
badge of all those not entitled to armorial bearings and not clothed in
the livery of the feudal lords. Indeed, from the expression "for the
King's footsoldiers" (_pro peditibus regis_), which occurs in more than
one of the rolls, it would seem that the St George's cross was used
instead of the royal arms for the soldiery raised directly by the king
and not brought into the field under the banner of any of the nobles.
It is not until the reign of Richard II that we meet with an order for
the whole of the army to be ensigned with the St George's cross.
Among the greater banners that of St George was not as yet supreme; it
was indeed only one of four, for when the Castle of Carlaverock was
taken in the year 1300:
Puis fist le roy porter amont
Sa baniere et la Seint Eymont
La Seint George et la Seint Edwart
Et o celes par droit eswart
La Segrave et la Herefort
Et cele au Seignour de Clifford
A ki li chasteaus fut donnes[102].
Then the king caused his banner
and that of St Edmund, St George,
and St Edward to be displayed on
high, and with them, by established
right, those of Segrave and Hereford
and that of the Lord of Clifford
to whom the castle was entrusted.
The first step towards the promotion of St George to a position of
predominance seems to be due to Edward III, who in gratitude for his
supposed help at the Battle of Creçy founded the Chapel of St George
at Windsor in 1348. It is from this time that we may date the actual
dethronement of Edward the Confessor from the position of "patron
saint" of England and the definite substitution of St George in his
place. This process was completed under Henry V after the Battle of
Agincourt. A Convocation of the province of Canterbury held at St
Paul's towards the end of 1415 raised the festival of St George to
the position of a "double major feast" and ordered it to be observed
throughout the province (which includes England and Wales south of
Cheshire and Yorkshire) with as much solemnity as Christmas Day. The
Archbishop[103], in his formal communication to the Bishop of London of
the decision arrived at, refers to St George as being "as it were the
patron and special protector" of the nation, "For by his intervention,
as we unhesitatingly believe, not only is the armed force of the
English people directed in time of war against hostile incursions, but
by the help of such a patron the struggles of the unarmed clergy[104]
in time of peace are frequently strengthened[105]."
When the Prayer Book was revised under Edward VI, the festival of St
George was abolished, with many others. Under the influence of the
Reformation the banners of his former rivals, St Edward and St Edmund,
together with all other religious flags in public use, except that of
St George, entirely disappeared, and their place was taken by banners
containing the royal badges.
We have seen that the appearance of the red cross on the clothing of
the soldiery can be traced back to the "bracer" of the archers of 1277.
The Ordinances of War made by Richard II at Durham in 1385, when on his
way to repel a threatened invasion from Scotland, required every man
in the king's army to bear a large cross of St George on his clothing
before and behind. Richard appears to have adopted this expedient from
the Scots, though they were of course not the first people to make
use of it. On the 1st of July in that year orders had been issued
for the soldiers of the Scottish army to be marked with a white St
Andrew's cross (see p. 47). At that date Richard was at Westminster;
he left there about the 4th of July, was at Leicester on the 7th, and
at York from the 17th to 22nd. On the 26th he had reached Durham; he
remained there till the 28th, and arrived at Morpeth by the 31st. The
ordinances which he issued at Durham must therefore be dated at the
end of July[106], and as there is no evidence that the English were
at this time in the habit of marking their coats with the red cross
before and behind, we may reasonably infer that it was then done for
the first time in direct imitation of the Scots. This provision is also
found in the similar ordinances made by Henry V at Mantes in 1419, the
only difference between them being that while under the older orders no
prisoner was allowed to wear this cross, under the later ones prisoners
in the custody of their captors might do so.
Ordinances of War made by King
Richard II at Durham A^o 1385.
_Cott. MS. Nero_ D. vi, f. 89.
Item que chescun, de quel estat
condicion on nacion qil soit, issint
qil soit de nostre partie, porte un
signe des armes de Seint George
large devant et autre aderer, sur
peril qe sil soit naufre ou mort en
defaute dycel, cely qe le naufra ou
tue, ne portera nul juesse pur li, et
que nul enemy ne porte le dit signe
de Seint George, coment qil soit
prisoner ou autrement sur peyne
destre mort[107].
Ordinances of War made by
Henry V at Mawnt (Mantes,
prob. July, 1419). _Lansdowne
MS._ 285.
Also, that every man of what estate,
condicion or nacion that he be, of
oure partie, bere a band of Seint
George suffisant large, upon the
perile, if he be wounded or dede
in the fawte thereof, he that hym
wounded or sleeth shall bere no
peyn for hym: and that none enemy
bere the said signe of Seint George,
but if he be prisoner & in the warde
of his maister, upon peyn of deth
therefore[108].
There is no record of the flags flown on English ships earlier than the
thirteenth century, but there can be little doubt that in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries they were of the rudimentary form (little more
than wind vanes) depicted on the ships of the Bayeux Tapestry. The
invention of the banner of arms about the middle of the thirteenth
century provided a ready means of distinguishing the nationality, port
of origin, or ownership of a ship at sea, and its use for that purpose
is indicated in a number of seals of seaport towns which may be dated
from the latter half of that century. Thus the seal of Lyme Regis
(Plate III, fig. 1), incorporated in the reign of Edward I, shows in
addition to the early type of gonfanon simply charged with a cross,
displayed from the masthead, banners of arms on spears amidships,
the arms being those of England and of Castile and Leon, the latter
in compliment to Eleanor of Castile, Queen of Edward I. The seal of
Sandwich (Plate III, fig. 4), somewhat earlier in design if not in
actual date, shows in addition to a small pendant at the masthead,
a banner on the forecastle and two banners on the aftercastle. The
ship in the seal of Faversham (Plate III, fig. 5) displays a pendant
at the masthead, the banner of St George on the forecastle, and a
banner charged with three chevronels on the aftercastle, while the
ship of Hastings (Plate III, fig. 6) displays the banner of the
Cinque Ports (Plate I, fig. 13) at the bow and the banner of England
on the aftercastle, in addition to a gonfanon at the masthead. From
the closing years of this century onwards a number of documents have
survived in the Public Records which give indications of the nature of
the flags displayed at sea. Thus the accounts[109] of the ship sent
from Yarmouth to fetch the "Maid of Norway" in 1290 show that this ship
was provided with banners of the Royal Arms and silken streamers, and
in the year 1294 sum of 5_s._ 6_d._ was expended in the purchase of a
streamer, and 20_d._ for a banner containing the figure of St George,
for a galley building at York, while for one building at Southampton in
the same year no less than 40_s_. (relatively a large sum) was expended
in purchasing two streamers and twenty-five banners of the Royal Arms.
The most interesting documents of that period are, however, first an
ordinance made at Bruges on 8th March, 1297, between Edward I and
the Count of Flanders[110] which provided that all ships of England,
Bayonne and other places under the English crown going to Flanders
should display a banner of the Royal Arms (_le signal des armes du Roy
d'Engleterre_) and that the ships of Flanders should display the arms
of the Count and be provided with letters patent sealed with the seal
of their port of origin confirming their right to do so--probably the
earliest instance of the existence of "ships' papers" upon record. The
second document[111] is a long recital of disputes at sea between the
mariners of England and Bayonne on the one side and the Normans on the
other, during the years from 1292 to 1298. From this it appears that in
a pitched battle which took place off the coast of Brittany the Normans
had flown at the mastheads streamers of red sendal 30 yards long and 2
yards broad called "baucans," and "signifying death without quarter and
mortal war in all parts where mariners are to be found."
When we enter upon the fourteenth century the sources of information
become more ample and the flags show greater diversity of device. The
ship in the seal of Dover of 1305 (Plate III, fig. 3) displays the
banner of the Cinque Ports on the stern castle and a gonfanon at the
masthead. The accounts of the king's armourer in 1322 contain entries
of eighty penoncels for galleys with the royal arms in chief, a large
number of banners of the arms of St Edmund (Plate I, fig. 7) and of
the arms of St Edward (Plate I, fig. 6), standards of the royal arms,
penoncels of St George for lances, and three banners of St George, but
it is not clear whether any of the above, except the 80 penoncels, were
for the king's ships. The material used, in addition to sendal, was
worsted, sindon and cloth of Aylsham.
A roll of the expenses of John de Bukyngham, clerk of the great
wardrobe, shows the following flags to have been manufactured under his
directions for the king's ships in 1350:
2 penoncels of sindon, 7¼ yards long and 2 cloths wide, red with
a white pale charged with 3 blue garters,
2 penoncels 3¼ yards long and 3 cloths wide, charged with a
shield of the royal arms surrounded by a blue garter,
2 streamers for the "Jerusalem," one 32 yards long and 5 cloths
wide with the royal arms in chief and striped red and white fly;
the other 30 yards long, of red worsted, charged with white
dragons, green lozenges and leopards' heads,
2 standards for the same ship, 8 yards square,
A streamer for the "Marye," 32 yards long with figure of St Mary in
chief, and the royal arms quarterly in the fly,
A streamer for the "Edward" 33 yards long with an "E" in chief and
the royal arms in the fly,
Streamers for the "John," "Edmund" and several other ships with
figures of the saint appropriate to the name painted upon linen
cloth in chief,
3 streamers 5, 10, and 30 yards long with the royal arms in chief
and fly chequered green and white powdered with green and red roses,
A streamer 24 yards long and 4 cloths wide for the ship assigned to
the King's Wardrobe, charged with the royal arms, with a black key
in chief, and 6 standards for the same ship with a leopard at the
head followed by a black key and the royal arms.
A few years later we have an indenture dated in the forty-third year of
Edward III whereby John de Haytfeld, clerk of the armour and artillery
of the king's ships, acknowledges the receipt from Thomas de Carleton,
the king's armourer[112], of a number of flags of the following types:
Streamers with the royal arms in chief varying in length from 8 to
38 yards
Standards with the royal arms in chief varying in length from 7 to
12 yards
Banners of the royal arms
Banners of St George
A Gonfanon of council of red tartaryn worked with nine golden
angels supporting a shield of the royal arms, each angel having
on his head a chaplet of the Order of the Garter (_Un gonfanon de
conseil de tartaryn rouge batuz od ix angelis dor tenantz un escu
des armes du Roy eiant suz les testes chapeles de garetters des
conflarie de saint George_)
A gonfanon blue and white with a shield of the royal arms
surrounded by a garter powdered with a golden fleurs de lis.
A similar indenture made with John of Sleaford, Clerk of the Privy
Wardrobe, mentions 18 standards of worsted of the royal arms, and 234
standards of linen of the arms of St George with leopards of worsted in
chief.
The flags of the fifteenth century were of similar type. A roll of the
tenth year of Henry V[113], containing a long list of articles supplied
for the royal ships, mentions the following flags:
For the "Trinity Royal"
A banner of council of the royal arms and St George,
Gittons of the Holy Trinity, St Mary, St Edward, royal arms,
St George, the ostrich feather, and swan,
Standards of St Mary, St George, the ostrich feather and royal
arms.
For the "Holy Ghost"
A streamer of the "Holy Ghost,"
Gittons of the Holy Ghost, antelope, royal arms, swan and
St Edward,
Standards of the Holy Ghost, St George, antelope and swan.
For the "Gabriel"
A streamer of St Katherine,
A gitton of St Edward.
For the "Nicholas"
A streamer of St Nicholas,
Gittons of St Edward, royal arms and ostrich feather,
Standards of St Edward and St George.
For the "Grace Dieu"
A streamer of St Nicholas,
A gitton of St Edward.
This exuberance of design persisted until the Reformation in England
put the saints out of favour. While in the early years of Henry VIII
the 'Henri Grace à Dieu' was provided with banners of England, England
and Spain, Castile, Guienne, Wales, Cornwall, the pomegranate and
rose, the rose of white and green, and St Edward streamers "with a
dragon" 45 and 42 yards long, one with a lion 36 yards long, one with
a greyhound 18 yards long and two "litell streamers with crosse of
saint George" 15 and 12 yards in length respectively, and other ships
had banners of St Peter, St Katherine, St Edward, St Anne, the dragon,
greyhound, portcullis and red lion, towards the end of his reign the
saintly flags had disappeared for ever, except for the red cross of St
George, and the royal arms and royal badges alone remain. Thus the ship
reproduced in the frontispiece from a plan of Calais harbour[114] made
about the year 1545 displays, in addition to the huge streamer of St
George, only the royal arms and the royal badges of the fleur-de-lis
and crown, ostrich feather, portcullis and crown, and rose and crown.
The rolls of Anthony Anthony, prepared in the last year of Henry VIII,
show streamers party green and white (the Tudor colours) with St
George's cross in chief; banners of St George and of the Tudor colours
in horizontal stripes, and a few banners of the royal arms, and of the
fleur-de-lis badge.
The accounts for the year 1574, when ensigns appear for the first time
among sea stores, give the following details as to their construction.
There were twenty-four of them made "for her Ma^{ts} newe shippes,"
the material being "bolonia sarcenett of diverse coulors." Staves were
provided, one with a gilt and the others with steel heads, with a pair
of tassels to each. The flags were provided with canvas sockets. For
the banners red and blue say was provided, with buckram for the socket,
and "mockadoe fringe." Streamers and banners were primed, painted and
coloured in oil colours by Wm Herne, the queen's serjeant painter, and
the streamers were of the following lengths:
84 feet long and 9 feet broad at the head
60 " " 7 " " "
54 " " 8 " " "
45 " " 6 " " "
36 " " 6 " " "
There were besides four banners of fine linen cloth, fringed, and
quartered with the royal arms, each being 15 feet long and 13 feet 6
inches deep. "And more twoe banners of damask thone of crymson with a
lyon of gold, thother of purple with affaulcon of silver fringed with
silke."
When Drake and Hawkins set out for their last voyage in 1594 they were
provided with
4 flags gilt with her Majesty's arms costing 60_s._ each
30 flags of St George costing 16_s._ and 8_d._ a piece
3 streamers with the Queen's badges in silver and gold that cost £8 each.
80 other streamers costing 25_s_. each, and
26 ensigns;
the total cost of these flags reaching the large amount (for those
days) of £221.
Very little record remains of the flags flown by British merchant ships
during this period. It has been already remarked that those going to
Flanders at the end of the thirteenth century were ordered to fly
the royal arms, and banners of these arms appear on the ships in the
early seals of Lyme Regis, Hastings and Bristol. The fifteenth century
seal of Yarmouth (Plate III, fig. 2) shows the banner of St George
on the forecastle, a pendant with cross of St George in chief at the
masthead, and a banner of the arms of Yarmouth[115] (closely resembling
the Cinque Ports flag but with herrings' tails substituted for the
dimidiated hulks) upon the stern castle. In the seal of Tenterden
(Plate III, fig. 7) and of Rye, also of the fifteenth century, the
banner of St George is prominent. It seems probable that from the
fourteenth century onwards ships not belonging to the king or the
nobility flew the flag of St George when they flew any flag at all. In
ships belonging to the greater nobles the custom appears to have been
to display a streamer of the owner's badges; thus the ships in the
"Warwick Pageant[116]," drawn circa 1490, display streamers containing
the badges of the bear and ragged staff with St George's cross in
chief. Ships of lesser owners, belonging to an important seaport such
as the Cinque Ports or Yarmouth, appear to have flown the recognised
flag of that port in addition to a flag or streamer of St George.
By the end of the sixteenth century the use of the royal arms had
become confined to the Admiral of the Fleet; the royal badges had
nearly disappeared from the sea, though they are occasionally to be
met with during the next century, and the flag of St George had taken
the lead as the distinguishing characteristic of English ships, both
men-of-war and merchantmen.
[Illustration: PLATE III Seals]
(ii) SCOTLAND
The history of the national flags of Scotland is much less complicated
than that of the flags of England, for the northern nation had decided
upon their patron saint at a much earlier date than their neighbours
south of the Tweed. There was a similar struggle for supremacy among
competing saints, but the issue was decided in the eighth century
and appears to have remained unchallenged ever since. In the words of
Wm Forbes Skene, the Scottish historian,
With the departure of the Columban Clergy, the veneration of
St Columba as the apostle of the northern Picts seems to have
been given up, at least by the southern portion of that people,
and St Peter now became the patron saint of the kingdom and
continued to be so till the year 736, when Angus the son of Fergus
established his power by the defeat of Nectan himself, and the
other competitors for the throne. As the king rapidly brought the
territories of the other Pictish families under his sway, and even
added Dalriada to his kingdom, he seemed desirous to connect a new
ecclesiastical influence with his reign, for in the same year that
he completed the conquest of Dalriada he founded a church at St
Andrews, in which he placed a new body of clergy, who had brought
the relics of St Andrew with them, and this apostle soon became
the more popular patron saint of the kingdom, while the previous
patronage of St Peter disappeared from the annals[117].
It is probable that the cross-saltire was adopted by the Scots as a
national ensign at a very early period, but there seems no direct
evidence of this before the fourteenth century. The earliest Scottish
records were unfortunately lost at sea in the ship that was sent to
return them to that country, whence they had been carried off, with the
Stone of Destiny, by Edward I.
In the summer of the year 1385 the Scots planned a raid into England,
in which they were assisted by a considerable contingent of French.
The Ordinances for the allied army drawn up by the Council for this
occasion and promulgated on the 1st July contained the following
proviso:
Item every man French and Scots shall have a sign before and
behind, namely a white St Andrew's Cross, and if his jack is white
or his coat white he shall bear the said white cross in a piece of
black cloth round or square[118].
It will be noted that the field on which the cross-saltire was to be
placed was immaterial, but if the coat happened to be white the field
was to be black. There is other evidence that the ground colour was
not an essential part of the design, although the prevailing colour
at a later date seems to have been blue. In the Accounts of the Lord
High Treasurer of Scotland[119] for the year 1512 there is recorded a
payment for a roll of blue say for the banner of a ship "with Sanct
Androis cors in the myddis." In 1513 the ground colour was also blue.
In 1523, however, when orders were again issued for each man to bear
the white saltire before and behind, no ground was mentioned, while in
1540 and 1542 the ground colour of the ensigns was yellow and red (the
Stuart livery colours) or red, as the following entries show:
1540
Item, the x day of Junii deliverit to Thomas Arthur to be iii
anseƷeis[120] to the schippis xvj elnis reid and Ʒallow taffites of
cord, price of the elne xviij s. Summa xiiij li. viij s.
Item, deliverit to him to be the croces thairof iiij elnes half
elne quhyte taffites of Janis[121] price the elne xv s. Summa iij
li. vij s. vj d.[122]
1542
Item, the vij day of August, deliverit to Charles Murray to be and
ansenƷe, x elnis raid and Ʒallow taffitis of cord, price of the
elne xviij s. and twa elnis quhite taffites of Janis to be croces
thairto, price of the elne xiiij s. Summa x li. viij s.[123]
There is a similar entry on the 12th for 8 ells red, and 2½ ells
white for the cross.
Cleirac, in his _Explication des Termes de Marine, etc._[124], gives
for the Scotch flag a ground of red or blue, and also a ground of red,
yellow and green, with the saltire in a canton or overall[125]. It is
probable, however, that he was relying on obsolete information, for
there seems no other evidence of a parti-coloured field so late as
1670[126], though a red ensign for ships, with white saltire in a blue
canton[127], was in use until the Legislative Union of 1707.
It remains to say a few words about the royal banner, which may be
considered in a sense national although it is the personal heraldic
flag of the sovereign and ought not to be used by any subject. The
rampant lion with a tressure fleur-de-lisé first appears in a seal
of Alexander II appended to a Charter dated 1222[128]. Except for
the period during which Mary Queen of Scots, after her marriage with
the Dauphin, impaled the French Arms with her own it has remained
unaltered, in the form in which we now see it quartered in the Royal
Standard, since the thirteenth century.
The Raven and the Dragon Standards found their way into Scotland, but
are not met with after the twelfth century. In the early years of
the eleventh century Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, who afterwards carried
the Raven standard against the Irish at Clontarf, was challenged by
Finleic, Earl of the Scots, to battle at Skedmire.
Sigrod sought his mother that she might divine unto him upon the
matter, for she was a wise woman. The earl told her that the odds
in number between his foeman and his own men would not be less than
seven to one. She answered, "I would have brought thee up all thy
life in my wool-basket, if I had known that thou wert bent upon
living for ever; but 'tis Fate that settles a man's days whatever
he is. It is better to die with honour than to live with shame.
Now take this banner, which I have wrought for thee with all my
skill! And I say, by my knowledge, that the victory shall be to
them before whom it is borne, but deadly shall it be to them that
bear it." The banner was made with much fine needle-work, and with
exceeding art. It was wrought in the likeness of a raven, and when
the wind blew upon the banner it was as if the raven flapped his
wings in flight. Earl Sigrod was very angry at his mother's words;
and gave the Orkneymen their ethel-holdings free to raise a levy
for him; and went to Skedmire to meet Earl Finleic, and each of
them set his host in array. And as soon as the battle was joined,
Earl Sigrod's standard-bearer was shot to death. The Earl called
upon another man to carry the standard, and he bore it for a short
while and then fell also. Three of the Earl's standard-bearers fell
indeed, but he won the victory[129].
The Dragon appeared as the Scottish Royal Standard at the Battle
of the Standard (1138). According to the contemporary "Relatio de
Standardo[130]," written by St Aelred, Abbot of Rielvaulx Abbey in
Yorkshire, when the Scots broke and fled those in flight saw from
the position of the royal standard, which was in the likeness of a
dragon[131], that their king was not slain, and gathering themselves
to him they renewed the fight. On this occasion the Scottish king's
son made use of the following ruse. Finding himself cut off with a few
companions, he told them to throw away the banners by which they were
to be recognised from the English and then, mixing with the latter as
though fighting on their side, they reached his father in safety.
Except for a short period during the reign of James IV (1473-1513) a
Scots navy was either non-existent or of little importance, and it is
therefore not to be expected that any great development took place in
its flags; nevertheless, from the Lord High Treasurer's accounts it
appears that no less a sum than £72. 7_s._ 6_d._ was expended upon the
"mayn standert" of the "Great Michael" in 1513. This flag appears to
have had a St Andrew's cross on a blue ground at the head, and a fly
of red and yellow on which the royal badges of the red lion and white
unicorn appeared. Other flags of this period were the banners of St
Andrew and St Margaret, and a banner and standards with the red lion
upon a yellow field.
(iii) IRELAND
In St Patrick the Irish possess a patron saint who is in the truest
sense national. Although a native of Scotland, the best of his life and
work was devoted to the people among whom in early youth the fortune
of war placed him. He seems, moreover, never to have had a serious
competitor for their favour[132], and they have been unwavering in
their allegiance to him. Nevertheless, there is no ancient flag, and no
symbol except the shamrock, associated with his name.
Flags do not seem to have been in use at a very early period among the
celtic nations, and when we meet with them in Irish literature in the
eleventh century the terms used for them are not native Irish words
but had apparently been borrowed from the Danish invaders who wrought
such havoc to the ancient Irish civilisation from the ninth to the
eleventh centuries. The word used by the author of the _Cogadh Gaedhel
re Gallaibh_ is "mergi[133]," which is believed to be borrowed from the
Scandinavian "merke" (mark), while the other word met with, "confingi,"
seems to be derived from the Norse "gunfana."
At the great battle of Clontarf fought in the year 1014 between the
Irish under their king Brian Borumha and the Danish invaders of Ireland
under the Earl Sigurd, assisted by the revolted king of Leinster, the
Irish under Brian had many banners, but these banners were known by
their colours rather than by any particular device in them.
Brian looked out behind him and beheld the battle phalanx ... and
three score and ten banners over them, of red, and of yellow,
and of green, and of all kinds of colours; together with the
everlasting, variegated, lucky, fortunate banner that had gained
the victory in every battle and in every conflict, and in every
combat ... namely the gold-spangled banner of Fergal Ua Ruairc[134].
These banners appear to have been personal to the chiefs and to have
been taken down when they were slain, even if their forces still
remained undefeated. During the conflict Brian, who on account of his
age took no part in the battle and was engaged in prayer at a little
distance, enquired repeatedly of his attendant whether the banner
of his eldest son, Murchadh, still remained aloft. Towards the end
he asked once more, and the attendant reported that it was far from
Murchadh but still standing. Brian said "The men of Erinn shall be
well while that banner remains standing because their courage and
valour shall remain in them all, as long as they can see that banner."
At length Murchadh was mortally wounded, and although the enemy were
defeated his banner was taken down. When his father asked again, the
attendant answered, "... the foreigners are now defeated and Murchadh's
banner has fallen." "That is sad news," said Brian, "... the honour and
valour of Erinn fell when that banner fell and Erinn has fallen now
indeed."
It may be concluded from this narrative that the Irish of the eleventh
century had no national flag common to the whole people. This, together
with the fact that after the death of Brian no Irish king arose great
enough to secure the allegiance of the whole nation, may explain why
the Irish never developed a national flag as did the English and Scots.
The red saltire on white ground which represents Ireland in the Union
flag had only an ephemeral existence as a separate flag. Originating
as the arms of the powerful Geraldines, who from the time of Henry II
held the predominant position among those whose presence in Ireland was
due to the efforts of the English sovereigns to subjugate that country,
it is not to be expected that the native Irish should ever have taken
kindly to a badge that could only remind them of their servitude to a
race with whom they had little in common, and the attempt to father
this emblem upon St Patrick (who, it may be remarked, is not entitled
to a cross--since he was not a martyr) has evoked no response from the
Irish themselves.
The earliest evidence of the existence of the red saltire flag[135]
known to the author occurs in a map of "Hirlandia" by John Goghe dated
1567 and now exhibited in the museum of the Public Record Office.
The arms at the head of this map are the St George's cross impaled
with the crowned harp, but the red saltire is prominent in the arms
of the Earl of Kildare and the other Geraldine families placed over
their respective spheres of influence. The red saltire flag is flown
at the masthead of a ship, possibly an Irish pirate, which is engaged
in action in the St George's Channel with another ship flying the St
George's cross. The St George's flag flies upon Cornwall, Wales and
Man, but the red saltire flag does not appear upon Ireland itself,
though it is placed upon the adjacent Mulls of Galloway and Kintyre in
Scotland. It is, however, to be found in the arms of Trinity College,
Dublin (1591), in which the banners of St George and of this saltire
surmount the turrets that flank the castle gateway.
The Graydon MS. Flag Book of 1686 which belonged to Pepys does not
contain this flag, but gives as the flag of Ireland (which, it may be
noted, appears as an afterthought right at the end of the book) the
green flag with St George's cross and the harp, illustrated in Plate X,
fig. 3. The saltire flag is nevertheless given as "Pavillon d'Ierne" in
the flag plates at the commencement of the _Neptune François_ of 1693,
whence it was copied into later flag collections.
Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate, when England and Scotland were
represented in the Great and other Seals by their crosses, Ireland was
invariably represented by the harp, and in the Union flag of 1658, as
will be seen later, it was the harp that was added to the English and
Scottish crosses to form a flag representative of the three kingdoms.
At the funeral of Cromwell the Great Standards of England and Scotland
had the St George's and St Andrew's crosses in chief respectively, but
the Great Standard of Ireland had in chief a red cross (not saltire) on
a yellow field[136].
When the Order of St Patrick was instituted in 1783 the red saltire
was taken for the badge of the Order, and since this emblem was of
convenient form for introduction into the Union flag of England and
Scotland it was chosen in forming the combined flag of England,
Scotland and Ireland in 1801.
Ireland has been represented in the royal standard since 1603 by the
golden harp on a blue field, but it would seem that this is not the
original arms of that country, for the augmentation of arms granted by
Richard II to his favourite Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, whom he
created Duke of Ireland in 1386, was _azure_, three crowns, _or_, and
these are said to have been confirmed as the true arms of Ireland by a
commission of enquiry under Edward IV. The harp, which appears to have
been an ancient badge of Ireland, was formally adopted as the arms of
that country by Henry VIII in the year when he changed the royal style
from "Dominus Hiberniae" to "Rex Hiberniae." The change in the colour
of the field from blue to green, as is commonly seen in the flags
of Irishmen in rebellion against English rule, is believed to have
originated with Owen Roe O'Neill in 1642.
There is very little information as to the flags flown in Irish ships.
From a date at least as early as the thirteenth century certain
of the Irish ports were accustomed to supply ships for the king's
service[137]. Such ships would have flown the English or Cinque Ports
flag. There is indeed a mention in the State Papers of 1586[138] of
an Irish ship attacking an English merchantman under the Scots flag,
"showing forth a Skottish ensigne," and a passage in Dudley's voyage in
1594[139] from which it may be inferred that there was no recognised
Irish flag at that date. In Feb. 1785, a brig from Dublin hoisted at
Antigua a green ensign with the harp and crown in the centre, which was
seized by Collingwood's orders, and later in the same year another ship
from Belfast, flying a similar ensign, was detained until the master
had gone ashore and bought proper colours for the vessel[140].
FOOTNOTES:
[64] Beda, _Historia Ecclesiastica_, II, 137. For _Tufa_, see _ante_,
p. 11.
[65] _Historia Anglorum_: "Aciebus igitur dispositis, cum in directum
tendentes appropinquarent, Edelhun praecedens West sexenses, regis
insigne draconem scilicet aureum gerens, transforavit vexilliferum
hostem."
[66] Probably Combwich, _vide_ Major, _Early Wars of Wessex_, 1913.
[67] Under the Devon earldorman Odda, Alfred being then in hiding at
Athelney.
[68] "Vexillum quod Reafun nominant." Cf. the _A. S. Chronicle_, "þær
wæs se guðfana genumen þe hie Hraefn."
[69] Asser, _Life of King Alfred_.
[70] _Emmae Reginae Anglorum Encomium_, lib. II.
[71] Plate II, fig. 10.
[72] Plate II, fig. 11.
[73] Anlaf seems to have lived alternately in Ireland, Scotland, and
Northumbria, and to have been King of Dublin in 945. On his final
expulsion from Northumbria in 952 he returned to Ireland, and after
the battle of Tara in 980 became a monk at Iona. See Todd, _War of the
Gaedhil with the Gaill_ (Rolls Series).
[74] William of Malmesbury, _De Gestis Regum Anglorum_: "Vexillum
Mauricii beatissimi martyris Thebae legionis principis, quo idem rex
in bello Hispano quamlibet infestos et confertos inimicorum cuneos
derumpere et in fugam solitus erat cogere."
[75] Henry of Huntingdon, _Historia Anglorum_: "Cum enim Dacos solito
acrius pugnare videret (Edmund) loco regio relicto, quod erat ex more
inter draconem et insigne quod vocatur 'Standard,' cucurrit terribilis
in aciem primam."
[76] Plate I, fig. 2; see p. 16.
[77] _Gesta Regum Anglorum_: "Rex ipse pedes juxta vexillum stabat cum
fratribus ... vexillum illud post victoriam papae misit Willelmus, quod
erat in hominis pugnantis figura, auro et lapidibus arte sumptuosa
intextum."
[78] There is a smaller figure of a man in the act of striking with
a club on the downs near Cerne Abbas in Dorset. Possibly both these
figures are pre-Saxon. The horse, a favourite subject for treatment in
this manner, is almost certainly pre-Saxon; yet it was adopted by the
Saxons of Kent.
[79] Roger de Hoveden, _Chronica_ "cum ... rex Angliae fixisset
signum suum in medio, et tradisset draconem suum Petro de Pratellis
ad portandum contra calumniam Roberti Trussebut, qui illum portare
calumniatus fuit de jure praedecessorem suorum."
[80] See p. 37.
[81] Dart, _Westmonasterium_, 1742.
[82] See especially Elliot Smith, _The Evolution of the Dragon_, 1919.
[83] In this same battle the Scots were led under the Dragon standard.
See p. 49.
[84] _Liber quotidianus Contrarotulationis Garderobae_ 29 Edward I.
This was printed by the Society of Antiquaries in 1787.
[85] _Rites of Durham_ (Surtees Society), 1903.
[86] Plate I, fig. 7.
[87] Plate I, fig. 6.
[88] Plate I, fig. 12.
[89] It is usually taken as 303 but the Rev. Baring Gould in his _Lives
of the Saints_ shows good reason for believing the actual date to be
285.
[90] _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, chap. XXIII.
[91] Baring Gould, _Curious Myths_, 1872.
[92] _Exchequer Accounts_, 349/2.
[93] Bail, _Summa Conciliorum_.
[94] Wilkins, _Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae_.
[95] _Ibid._
[96] Keyser, _Norman Tympana and Lintels_, 1904; _Sussex Archeological
Collections_, xliv.
[97] Benedict Abbas, _Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi_: "Praedicti vero
reges in susceptione crucis ad distinguendam gentem suam signum evidens
providerunt. Nam rex Franciae et gens sua cruces rubeas susceperunt, et
rex Angliae et gens sua cruces albas susceperunt, et comes Flandriae
cum gente sua cruces virides suscepit."
[98] _Les Us et Coutumes de la Mer._
[99] _Exchequer Accounts_, 3/15. Rotulus forinsecus de guerra Walliae
anno regni regis Edwardi quinto.
"Flind. Die martis in Festo Sancti Laurentii [pro tribus peciis de
Buckeram et tribus peciis telae de Aylesham emptis per manus Admeti
cissoris ad faciendum C Braceria et xx*xj penuncella de Armis
sancti Georgii et pro emendendum et sudendum eorundem Bracerium et
penuncellorum. ci s vi d. Item pro sex peciis telae de Aylesham emptis
ad faciendum Braceria et penuncella pro peditibus Regis per manus
eiusdem A. xx s. Item pro cl ulnis telae tinctae emptis pro eodem c s.
Item pro custura cxx penuncellorum de Armis sancti Georgii per manus
eiusdem A. xxiij s] (_other similar entries for material for Bracers_)
... pro tribus Stemeris emptis ad fracandum intus arma Regis vij s. vj
d."
[100] _Vide_ Nicolas, _Siege of Carlaverock_.
[101] _Prologue to the Canterbury Tales_, II. 108 et seq.
[102] Nicolas, _Roll of Carlaverock_.
[103] Henry Chicheley.
[104] I.e. fighting against ghostly enemies.
[105] Wilkins, _Concilia_, III, 375: "Hujus itaque dispositionis ex
clementissima et benignissima Dei Salvatoris nostri misericordia
procedentis consideratione, nationis Anglicanae plebs fidelis, etsi
Deum in sanctis suis omnibus laudare ex debito teneatur, ipsum tamen,
ut orbis affatus, ipsaque gratiae desuper concessae experientia, rerum
cunctarum interpres optima, attestantur, in suo martyre gloriosissimo,
beato Georgio, tanquam patrone et protectore dictae nationis speciali,
summis tenentur attollere vocibus, laudibus personare praecipuis et
specialibus honoribus venerari. Hujus namque, ut indubitanter credimus,
interventu, nedum gentis Angligenae armata militia contra incursus
hostiles bellorum tempore regitur, sed et pugna cleri militaris inermis
in sacrae pacis otio sub tanti patroni suffragio celebriter roboratur."
[106] In the MS. they are dated xvii July, but this is apparently an
error for xxvii.
[107] Twiss, _The Black Book of the Admiralty_, I, 456.
[108] _Ibid._ I, 464.
[109] _Exchequer Accounts_, 4/26.
[110] Rymer, _Foedera_, II, 759 and Marsden, _Law and Custom of the
Sea_ (N.R.S.), I, 46.
[111] Printed in _Lettres des Rois, etc._ (Documents inédits sur
l'histoire de France) I, 392, and in part by Mr Marsden (_op. cit._ I,
50). See also p. 160.
[112] _Exchequer Accounts_, 30/16.
[113] _Exchequer Accounts_, 49/29.
[114] B. M. _Cott. Aug._ I, ii, 57^{b.}
[115] Plate I, fig. 14.
[116] _Cott. Julius_ E. IV.
[117] _Chronicles of the Picts, Chronicles of the Scots and other early
Memorials of Scottish History_ (Rolls Series), Preface, clix.
[118] _The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, I, 191: "Item que tout
homme francois et escot ait un signe devant et derrere cest assauoir
une croiz blanche saint andrieu et se son Jacque soit blanc ou sa cote
blanche il portera la dicte croiz blanche en une piece de drap noir
ronde ou quarree."
[119] _Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland_ (Rolls Series),
edited by Sir Jas. B. Paul, III, 90.
[120] Ensigns.
[121] White taffety of Genoa (jean).
[122] _Op. cit._ VII, 189.
[123] _Ibid._ IX, iii.
[124] Rouen 1670, bound with his Les Us et Coutumes de la Mer.
[125] Escosse le Sauteur d'argent qui est la Croix des Chevaliers Saint
Andre, au drap de gueles ou d'azur: portent aussi face de gueles d'or
et de Synope qui est verd, le Sauteur au quanton ou sur le tout.
[126] The work appears, however, to have been written in 1634.
[127] Plate X, fig. 1.
[128] Dunbar, _Scottish Kings_, p. 89.
[129] _Orkney Saga_, XI.
[130] _Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, etc._ (Rolls Series), III,
181.
[131] Regale vexillum, quod ad similitudinem draconis figuratam facile
agnoscebatur.
[132] Except possibly in St Brigit and St Columcille.
[133] Elsewhere "meirge."
[134] _War of the Gaedhill with the Gaill (Cogadh Gaedhel re
Gallaibh_). Ed. with translation by J. H. Todd (Rolls Series), p. 156.
[135] Plate I, fig. 10.
[136] Prestwich, _Respublica_.
[137] E.g. Nicholas quotes an example in 1233, when the inhabitants of
Dublin were directed to prepare their new great galley for the king's
service, and ships from Waterford, Dublin, Youghal, Ross and Drogheda
were supplied for the Flanders expedition in 1304. Some, perhaps all,
of these ports were affiliated to the Cinque Ports, as, for instance,
Youghal, which became "one of the Petylymmes of the Cinque Ports in
Ireland" in 1462. (_Cal. Pat. Rolls._)
[138] _S. P. D. Eliz._ CLXXXVII, 13.
[139] See p. 198.
[140] It may be pointed out, however, that under the present Merchant
Shipping Act the flying of such a flag, if it did not imitate the
British or other national colours, would not be illegal, but the ship
must show the red ensign when required under Art. 74 of that Act.