Part 2

The forms of flags in our own country have varied very much. It was not till the time of the Crusades, when heraldry began to assume a definite form, that they became subject to established rules. Up to that period flags were, as a rule, small in size, and they usually terminated in points, like the more modern pennon. Such were the standards of the Normans. At the Battle of the Standard in 1138 the staff of the English standard was in the form of the mast of a ship, having a silver pyx at the top, containing the host, and bearing three sacred banners dedicated respectively to St. Peter, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon, the whole being fastened--like the standards of the Persians and Assyrians--to a wheeled vehicle.

From an early period the practice has prevailed of blessing standards, and this has continued to our own day in the British army when new colours are presented to a regiment--there being a special form of service at the consecration. The banner of William the Conqueror was one blessed and sent to him by the pope. Indeed, it has been the practice of the popes in every age to give consecrated banners where they wished success to an enterprise.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF FLAGS--GONFANON--PENNON--PENONCEL.

In the middle ages almost every flag was a military one. A very early form, borne near the person of the commander-in-chief, was the Gonfanon. It was fixed in a frame made to turn like a modern ship's vane. That of the Conqueror, as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, had three tails, and was charged with a golden cross on a white ground within a blue border.

Of other forms of flags the principal varieties were the penoncel, the pennon or guidon, the banner, and the standard.

The Pennon was a purely personal flag, pointed, borne below the lance-head by a knight-bachelor, and charged with the arms, or crest, and motto of the bearer. But in early times no knight displayed a pennon who had not followers to defend it--the mounting of this ensign being a matter of privilege, not of obligation. The order of knight-bachelor was the most ancient and originally the sole order, being the degree conferred by one knight on another without the intervention of prince, noble, or churchman, and its privileges and duties approached nearly to those of the knight-errant.[8]

[8] Sir Walter Scott, _Essay on Chivalry_, p. 79.

The Penoncel, which was carried by the esquire, was the diminutive of the pennon, being one-half its breadth. It was borne at the end of a lance, and usually bore the cognizance or "avowrye" of the bearer. This flag was not carried by the esquire after the fight began, but was then either held by an inferior attendant, or put up by the owner's tent.

BANNERS.

The Banner was the flag of a troop, and was borne by knights, called after it bannerets, an order which held a middle rank between knights-bachelors and the barons or great feudatories of the crown. The flag of a knight-banneret was square at the end, but not an exact square on all the sides. The perfectly square banner was the flag of a baron, and of those of higher rank.

It was only on the field of battle, and in presence of the royal standard, that a knight-banneret could be created. It was the custom for the commander of the host thus to reward the distinguished services of a knight-bachelor bearing a pennon, and he did so by tearing off the "fly," or outer part of that flag, and by so doing giving it a square form, thus making it a banner, and its bearer a knight-banneret. The ceremony is thus described by Blome.[9] "The king (or his general), at the head of the army, drawn up into battalia after a victory, under the royal standard displayed, attended with all the field-officers and nobles of the court, receives the knight led between two renowned knights or valiant men-at-arms, having his pennon or guydon of arms in his hand; and before them the heralds, who proclaim his valiant achievements, for which he deserves to be made a knight-banneret, and to display his banner in the field. Then the king (or general) says unto him _Advances toy, Bannaret_, and causes the point of his pennon to be rent off; and the new knight, having the trumpets before him sounding, the nobles and officers accompanying him, is remitted to his tent, where they are nobly entertained."

[9] _Analogia Honoria_. London, 1637; p. 84.

But knights were thus promoted before a battle as well as after it. Froissart relates the manner in which the celebrated Sir John Chandos was made banneret by the Black Prince before the battle of Navarete. The whole scene forms a striking picture of an army of the middle ages moving to battle. Upon the pennons of the knights, penoncels of the squires, and banners of the barons and bannerets, the army formed, or, in modern phrase, dressed its line. The usual word of the attack was, "Advance banners in the name of God and Saint George." "When the sun was risen," writes Froissart, "it was a beautiful sight to view these battalions, with their brilliant armour glittering with its beams. In this manner they nearly approached to each other. The prince, with a few attendants, mounted a small hill, and saw very clearly the enemy marching straight towards them. Upon descending this hill he extended his line of battle on the plain, and then halted. The Spaniards, seeing the English halted, did the same, in order of battle; then each man tightened his armour and made ready as for instant combat. Sir John Chandos then advanced in front of the battalions, with his banner [pennon] uncased in his hand. He presented it to the prince, saying 'My lord, here is my banner; I present it to you that I may display it in whatever manner shall be most agreeable to you, for, thanks to God, I have now sufficient lands that will enable me so to do, and maintain the rank which it ought to hold.' The prince, Don Pedro being present, took the banner in his hands, which was blazoned with a sharp stake gules, on a field argent; and after having cut off the tail to make it square, he displayed it, and, returning it to him by the handle, said, 'Sir John, I return you your banner: God give you strength and honour to preserve it.' Upon this Sir John left the prince, and went back to his men with the banner in his hand."[10]

[10] Johnes' _Froissart_, vol. i. p. 731.

A banneret was expected to bring into the field at least thirty men-at-arms--that is, knights or squires mounted--at his own expense; and each of these, again, besides his attendants on foot, ought to have had a mounted crossbow-man, and a horseman armed with a bow and axe--forming altogether a large troop. The same force might be arrayed by a knight under a pennon, but his accepting a banner bound him to bring out that number at least. After the reign of Charles IV. this obligation fell into disuse in France, and in England, soon after that time, it also ceased to be observed.[11] Judging, however, from the contemporary heraldic poem of the "Siege of Carlaverock" (June, 1300), it would appear that early in the fourteenth century there was a banner to every twenty-five or thirty men-at-arms. At that period the English forces comprised the tenants _in capite_ of the crown, who were entitled to lead their contingent under a banner of their arms--either by themselves or under a deputy of equal rank. Thus at Carlaverock the Bishop of Durham sent 160 of his men-at-arms, with his banner intrusted to John de Hastings. But his banner on this occasion bore, not the cognisance of the see, but simply his paternal arms. Having mentioned this old poem--in which the arms of every banneret in the English army are accurately blazoned--it may be interesting to give one of the opening verses, as an example of the Norman French of the period--

"La ont meinte riche garnement Brode sur cendeaus et samis, Meint beau penon en lance mis, Meint baniere desploie."

In English--There were many rich caparisons, embroidered on silks and satins, many a beautiful penon fixed to a lance, and many a banner displayed.

[11] Sir Walter Scott, _Essay on Chivalry_.

In the Scottish wars, the banner of St. Cuthbert was, in the English army, carried by a monk. This continued to be done so late as the reign of Henry VIII. In the same way the banner of St. John of Beverley was carried by one of the vicars of Beverley College--who, by the way, received eight pence halfpenny per diem as his wages, to carry it after the king--a large sum in those days--and a penny a day to carry it back.[12] The bearer of a banner, or bannerer as he was called, was in these early times a very important personage. In the old paintings in MSS. the persons holding the national or royal banners are generally represented in the same kind of armour as the chief leaders. And they were liberally rewarded for their services. In 1361 Edward III. granted Sir Guy de Bryon 200 marks a year for life for having discreetly borne the king's banner at the siege of Calais in 1347.[13]

[12] Prynne's _Antiquæ Constitutiones Angliæ_, vol. iii. p. 118.

[13] _Calend. Rot. Patent._ p. 173.

We learn from the "Siege of Carlaverock" that a pennon hung out by the besieged was the signal for a parley. When the castle surrendered there were placed on its battlements, we are told, the banners of the king, of St. George, of St. Edmund, and St. Edward, together with those of the marshall and constable of the army. To these were added the banner of the individual to whose custody the castle was committed. But it is doubtful whether in the fifteenth century any others but those of the king and St. George were affixed to captured fortresses.

In France the office of custodier of national banners--such as the Oriflamme--was hereditary. It was the same in Ireland, which claims a higher antiquity in the use of banners than any other European nation; and in Scotland the representative of the great house of Scrymgeour enjoys the honour of being banner-bearer to the sovereign.[14]

[14] _Vicissitudes of Families and other Essays_, by Sir Bernard Burke, 1st series, p. 387.

It was the custom in early times to have banners suspended from trumpets. At the battle of Agincourt the Duke of Brabant, who arrived on the field towards the close of the conflict, is said, by St. Remy, to have taken one of the banners from his trumpeters, and, cutting a hole in the middle, made a surcoat of arms of it. To this circumstance Shakespeare thus alludes--

"I will a banner from my trumpet take And use it for my haste."

Chaucer, too, notices banners being suspended from trumpets--

"On every trump hanging a brod banere, Of fine tartarium full richly bete, Every trumpet his lorde's armes bere."[15]

[15] _Flour and the Leafe_, 1 211.

At coronations banners were also used; and in the fifteenth century heralds, when despatched on missions, appear to have carried a banner bearing their sovereign's arms. Banners were also for a long time used at funerals. It was not till about the period of the Revolution that the practice fell into comparative desuetude.

STANDARDS--THE ROYAL STANDARD.

The Standard was a large long flag, gradually tapering towards the fly. According to the representation of a standard, in a heraldic MS. at least as early as the reign of Henry VII., in the British Museum, it was not quite so deep but very much longer than a banner,[16] and it varied in size according to the rank of the owner. In England that of a duke was seven yards in length, of a banneret four and a half, and of a knight-bachelor four yards.

[16] _Harleian MSS._ 2259, f. 186.

The Royal Standard of England, when the sovereign in person commanded the army, appears to have been of two sizes. According to the MS. referred to, one of these standards is to be "sett before the Kynges pavillion or tente, and not to be borne in battayle, and to be in length eleven yards." The other--"the Kynges standard _to be borne_"--is to be "in lengthe eight or nine yards."

The Royal Standard is a flag personal to the sovereign. It was not always exclusively so, for in the seventeenth century the Lord High Admiral, when personally in command of the fleet, and sometimes also other commanders-in-chief, flew as their flag of command, not the Union, but the Standard. It was so flown at the main by the Duke of Buckingham as Lord High Admiral, on the occasion when he disgraced the English flag in the unfortunate expedition against the Isle of Rhé in 1627. But now the Royal Standard is used only by the sovereign in person, or as a decoration on royal fête days. There are depicted on it the royal arms, which have had various forms in different periods of our history. The standard of Edward the Confessor was azure a cross floré between five martlets, or. The arms of William Duke of Normandy, emblazoned on his standard, were two lions, and they were borne by him and his successors, as the royal arms of England, till the reign of Henry II. That monarch married Eleanor, daughter and co-heiress of the Duke of Aquitaine, whose arms--one lion--Henry added to his own. Hence the three lions _passant gardant in pale_, borne ever since as the ensigns of England. These now occupy the first and fourth quarters of the standard, but they did not always do so. The fleurs-de-lis of France were, till a comparatively recent period, quartered with the English arms, having been first borne by Edward III. when he assumed the title of King of France. Many noble families, both in this country and on the Continent, have quartered the French lilies to show their origin, or in acknowledgment of the tenure of important fiefs there. Among the last may be mentioned the arms of Sir John Stewart of Darnley, who obtained from Charles VII. the lands and title of Aubigny, and the right to quarter the arms of France with his own. But in all these instances the fleurs-de-lis occupied a secondary place. So if Henry II. had desired merely to show his French connection, by maternal descent, he would have placed them in the second and third quarters. But he placed them in the first quarter, as arms of dominion, to indicate that he claimed the kingdom by right, and our sovereigns continued this idle pretence till so late as the reign of George III. It was not till the union with Ireland that it was discontinued.

Some of the English kings bore personal standards besides the flag of their own arms. Edward IV., besides his royal standard, generally bore a banner with a white rose. Henry VII. at the battle of Bosworth Field had three personal standards, in addition to the standard of his own arms. The blazon of these three, and how the king disposed of them after the battle, are thus described in a contemporary manuscript:--"With great pompe and triumphe he roade through the Cytie to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul where he offered his iij standards. In the one was the image of St. George; in the second was a red firye dragon beaten upon white and green sarcenet; the third was of yellow tarterne [a kind of fine cloth of silk] in the which was painted a donne Kowe."[17]

[17] _Lansdowne MSS._ 255, f. 433.

The Royal Standard of Scotland was a red lion rampant on a gold field within a red double tressure, floré counterfloré, of which the origin is veiled in the mists of antiquity. Our great heraldic authority, Nisbet, in common with earlier writers, adopts the tradition which assigns the assumption of the rampant lion to Fergus I., who is alleged to have flourished as King of Scotland about 330 years before Christ. He also refers to the celebrated league which Charlemagne is said to have entered into in the beginning of the ninth century with Achaius, King of Scotland, on account of his assistance in war, "for which special service performed by the Scots the French king encompassed the Scots lion, which was famous all over Europe, with a double tressure, flowered and counterflowered with flower de luces, the armorial figures of France, of the colour of the lion, to show that it had formerly defended the French lilies, and that these thereafter shall continue a defence for the Scots lion and as a badge of friendship."[18] On the other hand Chalmers observes that these two monarchs were probably not even aware of each other's existence, and he suggests that the lion--which first appears on the seal of Alexander II.--may have been derived from the arms of the old Earls of Northumberland and Huntingdon, from whom some of the Scottish kings were descended. He adds, however, that the lion was the cognisance of Galloway, and perhaps also of all the Celtic nations. Chalmers also mentions an "ould roll of armes," preserved by Leland, said to be of the age of Henry III. (1216), and which the context shows to be at least as old as the reign of Edward I. (1272), in which the arms of Scotland are thus described: "Le roy de Scosce dor a un lion de goules a un bordure dor flurette de goules."[19] In 1471 the parliament of James III. "ordanit that in tyme to cum thar suld be na double tresor about his armys, but that he suld ber hale armys of the lyoun without ony mar." If this alteration of the blazon was ever actually made, it did not long continue.[20]

[18] _System of Heraldry_, vol. ii. part iii. p. 98.

[19] _Caledonia_, i. 762, note (i.).

[20] Seton's _Law and Practice of Heraldry in Scotland_, p. 425.

With one noted exception Scotland never quartered the arms of any kingdom with her own. The exception was when Mary Stuart claimed the arms and style of England, and quartered these arms on her standard. This was perhaps the first, and, as it proved, an inexpiable provocation to Elizabeth.[21] Mary's mode of blazoning was peculiar. She bore Scotland and England quarterly--the former being placed first, and, over all, _the dexter half_ of an escutcheon of pretence, charged with the arms of England, the sinister half being obscured in order to intimate that she was kept out of her right.[22]

[21] Hallam's _Constitutional History_, 4th edit. i. 127.

[22] Strype's _Annals_, quoted by Mr. Seton, p. 427.

On the accession of James I. the Royal Standard of England was altered. The arms of France and England quarterly appeared in the first and fourth quarters, those of Scotland in the second, and in the third the golden harp of Ireland, which had taken the place of the three crowns. But an exception occurred in the case of William III., who, on his landing in England, had a standard bearing the motto, "The Protestant Religion and Liberties of England," and, under the royal arms of England, instead of "Dieu et mon Droit," the words "And I will maintain it." Afterwards he impaled on his standard the arms of Mary with his own. They are represented in this form in a MS. of the Harleian Library, on a banner per pale orange and yellow. After his elevation to the throne William placed over the arms of the queen, which were those of her father James II., his own paternal coat of Nassau.[23]

[23] Willement's _Regal Heraldry_, p. 95.

George III. when he left out the ensigns of France marshalled on his standard those of his Germanic states in an escutcheon of pretence--a small shield in the centre point. This was omitted on the accession of Queen Victoria, who bears on her standard the arms of England in the first and fourth quarters, Scotland in the second, and Ireland in the third. (See Plate IV. No. 1, p. 108.)

But while the Royal Standard was, on the accession of James I., altered for England in the way I have described, it was displayed according to a different blazon in Scotland. For a long period, whenever the standard was used to the north of the Tweed, the Scottish arms had precedence by being placed in the first and fourth quarters. On the great seal of Scotland this precedence is still continued, and the Scottish unicorn also occupies the dexter side of the shield as a supporter. But on the standard the arms of Scotland have now lost their precedence, those of England being placed in the first quarter, and although there has been much controversy on the subject, I agree with Mr. Seton[24] that it is better that the arrangement should be so. The standard is the personal flag of the sovereign of one united kingdom, and heraldic propriety appears to require that only one unvarying armorial achievement should be used on it--that of the larger and more important kingdom taking precedence, although Nisbet[25] claims precedence for the Scottish arms on the achievement of Great Britain as those of "the ancientest sovereignty."[26] I certainly do not agree with Mr. Seton, however, that either in the arms or supporters precedence ought to be granted to England "in accordance with the sentiment of certain well-known classical lines:--

"'The Lion and the Unicorn Were fighting for the Crown, The Lion beat the Unicorn All round the town.'"[27]

[24] _Scottish Heraldry_, p. 445.

[25] Vol ii. part iii. p. 90.

[26] Sir George Mackenzie says: "The King of Scotland being equal in dignity with the Kings of England, France, and Spain, attained to that dignity before any of these." He therefore claims precedence for Scotland over all these kingdoms. _Treatise on Precedency_, p. 4.

[27] _Scottish Heraldry_, p. 446.

I do not know where Mr. Seton got that version, inconsistent as it is alike with patriotism and with historical accuracy. It is certainly not the correct one. The true version, familiar to every boy in Scotland, is more impartial, and it has more fun in it. It runs thus:--

"The Lion and the Unicorn, Fighting for the Crown: Up came a little dog And knocked them both down."

--the "little dog" being the small lion which stands defiantly on the crown, and constitutes the royal crest at the top of the achievement.

The supporters of the Scottish arms were two unicorns. In England, previous to the accession of the Stuarts, the supporters of the royal arms were changed at the caprice of the sovereign, and almost every king or queen adopted new ones. From these, and from the royal badges, came many of the curious names which may be found in old lists of ships. Such as the "Antelope," which refers to one of the supporters of Henry VI.; the "Bull" of Edward IV.; the "Dragon" of Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth. So also the badges: the "Sun," "Rose in the Sun," and "Falcon in the Fetterlock," were all worn by Edward IV. The "Double Rose" speaks for itself, and the "Hawthorn" belonged to Henry VIII.[28] The supporters assumed by King James, and continued to all his successors, were a lion on the dexter side, and on the sinister one of the Scottish unicorns--the latter displacing the red dragon of the Tudor family.

[28] _Heraldry of the Sea_, by J. K. Laughton, M.A.R.N., 1879.

In ships the Royal Standard is never hoisted now except when her Majesty is on board, or a member of the royal family other than the Prince of Wales. When the latter is on board his own standard is hoisted. It is the same as that of the Queen, except that it bears a label argent of three points, with the arms of Saxony on an escutcheon of pretence. The standard of the Duke of Edinburgh is the same as that of the Prince of Wales, except that the points of the label are charged, the first and third with a blue anchor, and the second with the St. George's cross. Wherever the sovereign is residing the Royal Standard is hoisted; and on royal anniversaries and state occasions it is hoisted at certain fortresses or stations--home and foreign--specified in the Queen's Regulations.

STANDARDS BORNE BY NOBLES.