Part 3 (1/2)
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At the siege of Antioch, according to Robertus Monachus, a Benedictine of Rheims who flourished about the year 1120, and wrote a history of the Crusade, ”Our Souldiers being wearied with the long continuance of the Battaile, and seeing that the number of enemies decreased not, began to faint; when suddenly an infinite number of Heavenly Souldiers all in white descended from the Mountains, the Standard-bearer and leaders of them being Saint George, Saint Maurice, and Saint Demetrius, which when the Bishop of Le Puy first beheld he cryed aloud unto his troopes, 'There are they (saith he) the succours which in the name of G.o.d I promised to you.' The issue of the miracle was this, that presently the enemies did turne their backs and lost the field: these being slaine, 100,000 horse, beside foot innumerable, and in their trenches such infinite store of victuals and munition found that served not only to refresh the wearied Christians, but to confound the enemy.” This great victory at Antioch led to the recovery of Jerusalem. At the Crusades England, Arragon, and Portugal all a.s.sumed St. George as their patron saint.
Throughout the Middle Ages the war-cry of the English was the name of this patron saint. ”The blyssed and holy Martyr Saynt George is patron of this realme of Englande, and the crye of men of warre,” we read in the ”Golden Legend,” and readers of Shakespeare will readily recall ill.u.s.trations. Thus in ”King Richard II.” we read:--
”Sound drums and trumpets, boldly and cheerfully, G.o.d and St. George! Richard and victory.”
or again in ”King Henry V.” where the king at the siege of Harfleur cries,
”The game's afoot, Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry, G.o.d for Harry, England, and St. George!”
while in ”King Henry VI.” we find the line,
”Then strike up, drums--G.o.d and St. George for us!”[25]
At the battle of Poitiers, September 19th, 1356, upon the advance of the English, the Constable of France threw himself, Lingard tells us, across their path with the battle shout, ”Mountjoy, St. Denis,” which was at once answered by ”St. George, St. George,” and in the onrush of the English the Duke and the greater part of his {38} followers were swept away, and in a few minutes slain. In an interesting old poem on the siege of Rouen in 1418, written by an eye-witness, we read that on the surrender of the city,
”Whanne the gate was openyd there And thay weren ready in to fare, Trumpis blew ther bemys of bras, Pipis and clarionys forsoothe ther was.
And as they entrid thay gaf a schowte With ther voyce that was full stowte, Seint George! Seint George! thay criden on height And seide, Welcome oure kynges righte!”
We have before us, as we write, ”The story of that most blessed Saint and Souldier of Christ Jesus, St. George of Cappadocia,” as detailed by Peter Heylyn, and published in 1633, and the temptation to quote at length from it is great, as it is full of most interesting matter, but into the history of St. George s.p.a.ce forbids us to go at any length. The author of the ”Seven Champions of Christendom” makes St. George to be born of English parentage at Coventry, but for this there is no authority whatever, and all other writers make Cappadocia his birthplace. The history of St. George is more obscure than that of any name of equal eminence in the Calendar.
According to the ”Acta Sanctorum” he was the son of n.o.ble parents, became famous as a soldier, and, embracing Christianity, was tortured to death at Nicomedia in the year 303.
”The hero won his well-earned place, Amid the Saints, in death's dread hour; And still the peasant seeks his grave, And, next to G.o.d, reveres his power.
In many a Church his form is seen, With sword, and s.h.i.+eld, and helmet sheen; Ye know him by his s.h.i.+eld of pride, And by the dragon at his side.”
As Patron Saint, the dragon vanquisher is still seen on our crowns and sovereigns, and reference to such a book as Ruding's history of our coinage will show that it has for centuries been a popular device.
In 1245, on St. George's Day, Frederic of Austria inst.i.tuted an order of knighthood and placed it under the guardians.h.i.+p of the soldier-saint, and its white banner, bearing the ruddy cross, floated in battle alongside that of the Empire. In like manner on St. George's Day, in the year 1350, Edward III. of England inst.i.tuted the order of the Garter with great solemnity.
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St. George's Day, April 23rd, has too long been suffered to pa.s.s almost unregarded. The annual festivals of St. Andrew, St. Patrick, and St. David are never overlooked by the members of the various nationalities, and it seems distinctly a thing to be regretted that the Englishman should allow the name day of his Patron Saint to pa.s.s unnoticed.[26] Whatever conduces to the recognition of national life is valuable, and anything that reminds Englishmen of their common ties and common duties--and reminds them, too, of their glorious heritage in the past--should scarcely be allowed to fall into disuse. Butler, in his ”Lives of the Fathers and Martyrs,” tell us that at the great National Council, held at Oxford in 1222, it was commanded that the Feast of St. George should be kept. In the year 1415, by the Const.i.tutions of Archbishop Chichely, St. George's Day was made one of the greater feasts and ordered to be observed the same as Christmas Day. In 1545 a special collect, epistle, and gospel were prepared, and at the Reformation, when many of the Saints' Days were swept away, this was preserved with all honour, and it was not till the sixth year of the reign of Edward VI., when another revision was made, that in ”The Catalogue of such Festivals as are to be Observed” St. George's day was omitted.
The Cross of St. George was worn as a badge,[27] over the armour, by every English soldier in the fourteenth and subsequent centuries, even if the custom did not prevail at a much earlier period. The following extract from the ordinances made for the government of the army with which Richard II.
invaded Scotland in 1386, is a good ill.u.s.tration of this, wherein it is ordered ”that everi man of what estate, condicion, or nation thei be of, so that he be of owre partie, here a signe of the armes of Saint George, large, bothe before and behynde, upon parell that yf he be slayne or wounded to deth, he that hath so doon to hym shall not be putte to deth for defaulte of the cross that he lacketh. And that non enemy do bere the same token or crosse of Saint George, notwithstandyng if he be prisoner, upon payne of deth.” It was the flag of battle, and we see it represented in the old prints and illuminations that deal with military operations both on land and sea. Ordinarily it is the Cross of St. George, pure and simple, as shown in Fig. 91, while at {40} other times, as in Figs. 66, 67, 68, it forms a portion only of the flag. The red cross on the white field was the flag under which the great seamen of Elizabeth's reign traded, explored, or fought; the flag that Drake bore round the world--that Frobisher unfolded amidst the Arctic solitudes--that gallant Englishmen, the wide world over, bore at the call of duty and died beneath, if need be, for the honour of the old home land; and to this day the flag of the English Admiral is the same simple and beautiful device, and the white ensign of the British Navy, Fig. 95, is similar, except that it bears, in addition, the Union; while the Union flag itself, Fig. 90, bears conspicuously the ruddy cross of the warrior Saint.
Figs. 26, 27, 74 and 140 are all sea-pennants bearing the Cross of St.
George. The first of these is from a painting of H.M.S. _Tiger_, painted by Van de Velde, while Fig. 27 is flying from one of the s.h.i.+ps represented in the picture by Volpe of the embarkation of Henry VIII. from Dover on his way to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Fig. 74 is from a picture of H.M.S.
_Lion_, engaging the French s.h.i.+p _Elisabethe_, on July 9th, 1745, the latter being fitted out to escort the Young Pretender to Scotland. Though the red, white, and blue stripes suggest the French tricolor, their employment in the pennant has, of course, no reference to France. The _Lion_ had at the foremast the plain red streamer seen at Fig. 25. Fig. 140 is the pennant flown at the present day by all Colonial armed vessels, while the pennant of the Royal Navy is purely white, with the exception of the Cross of St. George. In a picture by Van de Velde, the property of the Queen, representing a sea fight on August 11th, 1673, between the English, French, and Dutch, we see some of the vessels with streamers similar to Fig. 140, thus ante-dating the Colonial flag by over two hundred years.
As we have at the present time the white ensign, Fig. 95, the special flag of the Royal Navy; the blue ensign, Fig. 96, the distinguis.h.i.+ng flag of the Royal Naval Reserve; and the red ensign, Fig. 97, the flag of the Merchant Service, each with the Union in the upper corner next the mast, so in earlier days we find the white flag, Fig. 65, the red flag, Fig. 66, and the blue, each having in the upper corner the Cross of St. George. Fig. 69 becomes, by the addition of the blue, a curious modification of Fig. 66. It is from a sea piece of the sixteenth century. It was displayed at the p.o.o.p of a vessel, while Fig. 79 is the Jack on the bowsprit.
A hundred years ago or so, we may see that there was a considerable variety in the flags borne by our men-o'-war. Such galleries as those at Hampton Court or Greenwich afford many examples of this in the pictures there displayed. In a picture of a battle off Dominica, on April 12th, 1782, we find, one of the English {41} s.h.i.+ps has two great square flags on the foremast, the upper one being plain red, and the lower one half blue and half white in horizontal stripes, while the main mast is surmounted by the Cross of St. George, and below it a tricolor of red, white, and blue in horizontal stripes. Other s.h.i.+ps show equally curious variations, though we need not stop to detail them, except that in one case both fore and mizen masts are surmounted by plain red flags. In a picture of Rodney's Action off Cape St. Vincent, on January 16th, 1780, we meet with all these flags again. In the representation of an action between an English and French fleet on May 3rd, 1747, off Cape Finisterre, we notice that the English s.h.i.+ps have a blue ensign at the p.o.o.p, and one of them has a great plain blue flag at the foremast, and a great plain red flag at the main-mast head. In a picture of the taking of Portobello, November 21st, 1739, we notice the same thing again. These plain surfaces of blue or red are very curious. It will naturally occur to the reader that these are signal flags, but anyone seeing the pictures would scarcely continue to hold that view, as their large size precludes the idea. In the picture of H.M.S. _Tiger_ that we have already referred to, the flag with five red stripes that we have represented in Fig. 70 is at the p.o.o.p, while from the bow is hoisted a flag of four stripes, and from the three mastheads are flags, having three red stripes. These striped red and white flags may often be seen.
Perhaps the most extraordinary grouping of flags may be seen in a picture of a naval review in the reign of George I. It was on exhibition at the Great Naval Exhibition at Chelsea, and is in private owners.h.i.+p. All the vessels are dressed in immense flags, and these are of the most varied description. It must be borne in mind that these are government bunting, not the irresponsible vagaries of private eccentricity. Besides the reasonable and orthodox flags, such as those represented in Figs. 65, 66, and others of equal propriety, we find one striped all over in red, white, blue, red, white, blue, in six horizontal stripes. Another, with a yellow cross on a white ground; a third, a white eagle on a blue field; another, a red flag inscribed--”For the Protestant Religion and the Liberty of England”; while another is like Fig. 65, only instead of having a red cross on white, it has a blue one instead. An altogether strange a.s.sortment.
Figs. 67, 68, 72, and 78 are flags of the London Trained Bands of the year 1643. The different regiments were known by the colour of their flags, thus Fig. 67 is the flag of the blue regiment, Fig. 68 of the yellow, Fig. 72 of the green, and Fig. 78 of the yellow regiment auxiliaries. Other flags were as follows:--white, with red lozenges; green, with golden wavy rays; orange, with white trefoils; in each case the Cross of St. George being in the canton. {42} In a list before us of the Edinburgh Trained Bands for 1685 we find that the different bodies are similarly distinguished by colours.[28]
On the union of the two crowns at the accession of James VI. of Scotland and I. of England to the English throne, the Cross of St. Andrew, Fig. 92, was combined with that of St. George.