History of the Union Jack and Flags of the Empire

There is an instinct in the human race which delights in the flying of flags--a sentiment which appears to be inborn, causing men to become enthusiastic about a significant embl...

With such natural emotions stirring within the breasts of its people, one can appreciate the fervid interest taken by each nation in its own national flag, and understand how it...

It is quite evident, then, that national flags are not merely a haphazard patchwork of coloured bunting, nor by any means "meaningless things." Their combinations have a history...

The original leader and dominant partner in the three kingdoms, which have been the cradle of the British race throughout the world, was England, and it is her flag which forms...

While it is true that flags and banners had grown up on land from the necessity of having some means of identifying the knights and nobles, whose faces were encased and hidden f...

From a very early period St. Andrew has been esteemed as the patron saint of Scotland, and held in veneration quite as strong as that entertained in England for St. George. The...

The kingdoms of England and Scotland had passed through their centuries of dissension and conflict when at length, in March, 1603, upon the death of his second cousin, Elizabeth...

The new two-crossed flag of King James had, in 1606, been authorized to be used by the ships of all his subjects, by the merchantmen as well as on the men-of-war. This order cau...

The history of the Jacks as single flags having been traced through these periods, we may revert to the changes brought about by their being made part of a larger flag, and note...

At the close of the first historic period of the St. George Jack we saw it reigning supreme upon the seas around the shores of England. The great Armada had, in 1588, been met a...

Notwithstanding the check which they had received in their career, the marine power--both naval and merchant--of the Dutch kept on increasing. The hostilities against Spain, con...

In the year 1707, being the sixth year of the reign of Queen Anne, the Parliaments of England and Scotland were at length brought into Union in one Parliament. Up to this time t...

Although the Union Jack has been built up on the local Jacks of the three island kingdoms, its greatest glories have been won in expeditions sent far across the seas to other la...

The lineage of the Irish Jack is not so clearly defined as is that of the other Jacks. Although "Paddy" has always been so ready for a shindy that fighting has come to be consid...

We now turn to the history of the Jacks in the country to the south of Canada, where immigration from England had been building up the thirteen English colonies which subsequent...

to Governor Hunter for the Province of New York, and the drawing of the flag[98] which is attached to the documents is the same in 1709 as in the instructions of 1701.

The thirteen English colonies which in succession had been planted in North America, along the shores of the Atlantic from the French possessions in Acadia to the Spanish posses...

The history of the flag, so far as we now have followed it, has been the story of martial or naval prowess and of the extension of its power and command around the world; but th...

In addition to its harmony with the story of the union and the growth of the Constitution in the Motherland, the Union Jack has also an interesting connection with the extension...

For forty years King George III. had reigned as King of Great Britain and Ireland. The Union Parliament, created under Queen Anne, had administered the affairs of England and of...

If some of the heralds are not entirely satisfied with the way the divisions are made, due honour has at least been done to each of the Jacks of the three kingdoms, while at the...

The division of proportions allotted to the crosses and to the white border of St. George in the Union Jack has hitherto been treated solely by inference and also by comparison...

In 1801 the "new" three-cross union had entered into the upper corner of the red ensign of British rule. The Canadians, both French and English, had been faithful to its two-cro...

These stories of martial and constitutional advance are not all the story that this Union Jack tells. There is something more than mere valorous devotion which should be aroused...

There is yet the other ideal phase in which the Union Jack in the outer realms of the Empire and in Canada reigns supreme--that of "liberty to the people." The inborn hope which...

This Union Jack, so spread abroad, is in its single form a declaration and an evidence of British nationality, and is raised every day from sunrise to sunset over every one of t...

In its single form the Union Jack has these special duties, which have been noted, but combined in the upper corner of a larger flag it creates a general flag of the nation, and...

A further evolution in the Union flag has come step after step, by which the distinguishing emblems of the colonies have become part, first of the Union Jack, afterwards of the...