Part 2 (2/2)
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 s.h.i.+eld 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-s.h.i.+lling {32} piece, called a florin, which has lately been issued, bears upon the reverse four crowned s.h.i.+elds, 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 Lords.h.i.+p's attention to the position occupied by the arms of Scotland upon this coin, which are placed in the third s.h.i.+eld 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 Lords.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 s.h.i.+eld, 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 s.h.i.+eld, 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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]
<script>