CHAPTER III.

FAMOUS AND ANCIENT BANNERS.

In all ages and in all armies, the greatest veneration has ever been manifested by soldiers for their ensigns and standards, as being the veritable representation and embodiment of the national glory and honour, or it might be of a righteous cause. In the ages of classical antiquity, the religious care taken of these emblems was extraordinary. The soldiers worshipped them, and swore by them, as some European troops still do. The Roman Legionaries incurred certain death if they lost them in battle; and Livy tells us, that to animate them, the standards were sometimes thrown among the enemy, that they might be recaptured at all hazards.

In all armies at the present day, regimental standards are consecrated by a religious ceremony, have the highest military honours paid to them, and when too old for use, are solemnly deposited in a church, or sometimes burned, or buried with all the honours of war; and by the Queen's Regulations (Section VII.) are finally marched from their last parade, to the air of "Auld lang Syne."

Among the most famous banners of antiquity, may be enumerated the Labaram of Constantine, the Oriflamme of France, those of Otho IV., of Philip Augustus, of Bayard, Joan of Arc, and Mahomet.

Like most ancient banners, the origin of the Labaram was alleged to be miraculous, and surrounded by fables, though the reign of Constantine was so glorious, that it required not the meretricious aid of prodigy. When on his march against Maxentius, he is said to have seen in the heavens a cross of flame like the Greek letter X inverted in the form of a square cross, and in Greek around it, the words _Conquer by this_. Eusebius further relates, that next night, the Saviour appeared to him, and ordered him to make a military standard, in the form of the cross he had seen, which he did, and was always successful in war. Its name has not unfrequently been written Laborum, to signify that the cross should put an end to the _labours_ and persecutions of the Christians; and it was supposed the guards to whom this miraculous banner was intrusted, were always invulnerable in battle.

At the battle of Bouvines, the imperial standard of Otho IV., like that of the English--the banner of St. John of Beverley on the field of Northallerton--was hoisted from a frame, raised on four wheels. Upon it was painted a dragon, above which was a gilded eagle. On that day the royal standard of France was a gilded staff, with a white silk colour, powdered with fleurs-de-lis, which had become the national arms. "The old crowns of the kings of Lombardy," says Voltaire, "of which there are very exact prints in Muratori, are mounted with this ornament, which is nothing more than the head of a spear, tied with two other pieces of crooked iron."

The banner used by the Chevalier Bayard, when he gallantly took command of Mézieres, and defended it against 40,000 Spaniards under Charles V., is still preserved in the Hôtel de Ville of that place.

Joan of Arc, bore with her in all her battles and sieges a consecrated banner, which was believed to be miraculous, and was revered as holy. It was white silk, and bore a figure representing the Supreme Being, grasping the world, and surrounded by fleurs-de-lis. Clad in white armour, with this standard in her hands, she entered Orleans on the 29th of April, 1429, in the face of a vastly superior English force, and lodged it with herself, in the house of Jacques Bouchier. She had previously declared, at the moment when Dunois, repulsed, was sounding the retreat, that when her standard touched the city wall, the assailants should enter. "It was touched. The assailants burst in. On the next day the siege was abandoned and the force which had conducted it withdrew in good order to the north." Joan bore this standard, also, at the capture of Jargeau, when Suffolk was taken prisoner and his garrison put to the sword, and it was in her hand, at her crowning glory, the coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims. She stood with it before the high altar, says Lord Mahon. "It had shared the danger," she observed, "and it had a right to share the honour."--(Monstrelet, &c.)

When tried as a witch and heretic by the Bishop of Beauvais and other tools of the English, they asked her "why she put trust in her standard, which had been consecrated by magical incantation?" But she replied that she put trust alone in the Supreme Being, whose image was impressed upon it. Then they demanded why she carried in her hand that standard at the anointment and coronation of Charles at Rheims; and again she answered, that the person who shared the danger was entitled to share the glory.

But the most famous banner in Europe or Asia at one time was undoubtedly that of the Knights of the Temple. It was formed of cloth, striped black and white, called in old French _Bauseant_, a word which became the battle cry of the Templars. It bore on it the red cross of the order, with the humble and pious inscription, _Non nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo, da gloriam_ (Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name give the glory!)

_Bauseant_ was in old French the name for a piebald horse, or a horse marked black and white (Roquefort-Ducange, &c.); and the word is still preserved and used in its original sense in Scotland as _bawsent_, as any reader of Burns's poems may remember. At the commencement of a battle the Marshal took the standard of the order from the sub-marshal, and unfurled it in the name of God. He then named from five to ten of the brotherhood to surround and guard it; one of these he made a knight-preceptor, who was to keep close by him with another banner furled on a spear, to be instantly displayed if any mishap befell the _Bauseant_. In the event of the Christians being defeated, the Templar, under penalty of expulsion from the order, was not to quit the field so long as the banner of the order was flying; should no other red-cross flag be seen, he was at liberty to join that of the Hospitallers, and was only to retire, as well as he could, when the _Bauseant_ and every other Christian banner should have disappeared.

In "Ivanhoe" Scott spells the name of the banner _Beauseant_.

In referring to the banner of the Templars, it is impossible to forget that one so often displayed against the Christians, the standard of the Prophet Mahomet, the unfurling of which was so frequently threatened at the commencement of the Russo-Turkish war, a ceremony which only takes place on gravest emergencies or occasions of state.

The origin of this standard is remarkable. When the Prophet lay on his death-bed at Medina, while his mind was full of his projected conquest of Syria, he summoned the chiefs of his host around him to hear his last orders and wishes. While listening to his dying utterances in silence and awe, Ayesha, the most beautiful and best beloved of his wives, rushed into the room, and, tearing down a green curtain which screened one end thereof, threw it before the chiefs, and desired them to display it as the holy banner of Islam, and this was actually done in many subsequent wars against the Christians and others. By some it was said to have been the curtain that hung before the apartments of Ayesha; and it has been permanently lodged in the Seraglio at Constantinople, and is generally brought forth on the occasion of a new sultan being girt with the sword of Osman, or Othman; but it may shrewdly be doubted whether this banner--the present _Tanjak-Sherif_--is the same that was unfurled at Bedr, and which was upheld by nine hundred and fifty of Mahomet's disciples against the whole power of Mecca, at Ohod, a mountain northward of Medina, when Hamza, the uncle of the Prophet, fell.

Though unvarying faith and tradition carry it back to the days of Mahomet, there can be little doubt that it is the identical banner which, in 1683, Kara Mustapha, nephew of the great Cuprogli, hoisted on the walls of Vienna, though that city was not completely conquered. Its display is always attended with much pomp and ceremony. When unfurled it is always handed to the Scheik-ul-Islam, or Grand Mufti, who combines in his own person the supreme power of the law with the highest office of religion, who mounted on a caparisoned steed, and, attended by the Sultan, bearing a drawn scimitar, rides in procession through the streets of Constantinople, escorted by the _Ulemas_, whose duty it is to proclaim that war has been declared against the unbelievers. The scheik then assigns it to the Commander-in-chief, whose duty it is to see that it is always borne in front in battle.

It is a veritable banner of blood, denying mercy to man, woman, and child, on the display of which, as the Koran has it, "the earth will shake, the mountains sink into dust, the seas blaze with fire, and the hair of children grow white with anguish;" but for more than three generations it has never been brought forth in hostility--at least, not since the Empress Catharine sought to reinstate the Christian Empire at Constantinople. Upon it is the dubious motto, "All who draw the sword in the cause of Faith shall be rewarded with temporal advantages."

The Turks and Tartars were wont to make use of horses' tails for their ensigns, and the number of these denoted the rank of their commanders--the Sultan having seven, and the grand vizier only three, &c.

The alleged origin of the holy banner of Persia is curious. It is said that during a battle which lasted three days between Saade and Rustam, the usurper--the same who assassinated the reforming Sophi in 1499--the standard of the monarchy was captured, a circumstance that caused excess of grief on one side and of joy on the other--one party feeling that their _prestige_ had departed, and the other--that of the usurper--deeming it a sure presage of future victory. This war-like relic was simply the leathern apron of a blacksmith, who in some remote time had been the William Wallace of Persia, for the mastery of which the Saracens so long contended with the Turks; but the badge of heroic poverty was disguised, and almost concealed, by the profusion of gems which covered it.

Undoubtedly, the banner which had the most distinct and glorious history was the Oriflamme of France, first adopted in person by Louis VI. in 1110, and which continued to be borne by the French sovereigns, in addition to the Royal Standard, down to the time of Charles VII., and the accounts of which have been entirely overlooked by British historians and antiquaries. Before the time of Louis VI., the Comtes de Vexin were bound by the charter of their lands, which they held of the Abbey of St. Denis, to protect the domains of the latter, and accordingly, on the approach of any danger or invasion, they assembled their vassals and appeared before the Abbey, where they received its banner, or gonfanon, which was borne before them in battle in defence of the lands of the church. At a later period the county of Vexin having been annexed to the crown, the kings of France followed the pious example of the ancient counts, to whom they had succeeded, and thus, in time, the oriflamme, as a royal standard of France, supplanted that which had been hitherto borne, the alleged cloak of St. Martin, of Tours--or rather the half thereof, as, according to the Bollandists, he gave the other portion to a shivering beggar at the gate of Amiens.

He to whom the care of the banner was confided at the head of the army, had the title of _Porte-Oriflamme_, and had the command of its chosen guard, noble chevaliers and men-at-arms. He was ever a man of prudence and approved valour, and his post led to higher honours. We find in history, under Charles V. of France, a gentleman styled Marshal of France, who was its bearer. It was an office for life, and for death too, as his oath obliged him to perish, rather than abandon the _Oriflamme_.

Louis IX. lost it on his expedition to Egypt, as it fell, for a time, into the hands of the infidels; and "the Oriflamme has not been in use in our armies," says the _Dictionnaire Militaire_, 1758, "since the English were absolute masters of Paris, after the death of Charles VI."

The Oriflamme was of flame-coloured silk--hence its name--uncharged, and divided at the lower extremity into three portions ending in green tassels. It was hung from a cross-yard, with two cords of silk and gold to keep it from swinging in the wind, on the march, or when in battle.

The first _named_ in history as its bearer is Anscieu Seigneur de Chevreuse, in 1294, under Philip le Bel. He had predecessors in the time of Louis le Gros; but René Moreau is the last who, in 1450, was commissioned with the real dignity of _Porte-Oriflamme_. Though usually, till the first Revolution, lodged at St. Denis, it was occasionally left for a time in the custody of its bearers; hence the families of D'Harcourt and Beavron long affirmed that they were in possession of the real Oriflamme, as successors of Pierre de Villiers de Lisle Adam, who had been its bearer, and whose daughter married the brave Jean Garencière.

Louis VII. took it with him in his voyage to the Bosphorus and his march through Hungary and Thrace. Philip Augustus had it displayed in 1183, in the war against Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders; Galois, Seigneur de Montigne, bore it at the battle of Bouvines, and Louis VIII. unfurled it in the war against the Albigeois in 1226.

Louis IX. had it with him in the war against Henry III. of England in 1262, and, as stated, in his crusade against the infidels in Egypt; De Chevreuse bore it under Philip in 1304; and the bearers were successively, Raoul, surnamed _Herpin_, Seigneur d'Erquery in 1315; Miles de Noyers de Vilbertin in 1328; Geoffry Lord of Charny in 1355; Arnoul d'Andrehon in 1388; the Seigneur de L'Isle Adam in 1372; Sire de la Trimoille and Guillaume de Bordes in 1383; Pierre d'Aumont, surnamed _Hutin_, in 1397; and Guillaume Martel de Bocqueville in 1414.

Louis XI. received the banner from the hands of Cardinal d'Alby in 1465, in the ancient church of St. Catharine _du Val des Écoliers_ at Paris, prior to the war against the Burgundians, and after that, we hear no more of the famous Oriflamme, which must have perished at the sack of St. Denis in 1793; but a modern red-flag supplies its place behind the altar there, at the present day.

The so-called Raven-banner of Hubba the Dane, which was captured near Northam in Devonshire, when he was slain in battle by the Saxons, in 869, and where his tomb is still shown, was simply a stuffed black bird, probably of the raven species, which remained quiet when defeat was at hand, but clapped its wings vigorously before a victory.

The royal ensign of the West Saxons was a golden dragon; and thus we hear often of the Dragon of Wessex in the fierce old fights during the time of the Heptarchy.

It was not until after the Synod of Oxford, in 1220, that the Red Cross of St. George supplanted the martlets of St. Edward, up to that date the patron of England. The Scottish Cross of St. Andrew has a fabulous history exactly similar to that of the _Labaram_ of Constantine, and dating back to the ninth century; but in neither England nor Scotland has a banner of any antiquity been preserved, unless we may enumerate as such the banner given to the citizens of Edinburgh by Margaret of Oldenburg, Queen of James III., in 1482, and still preserved there, under the local name of the Blue Blanket, or Banner of the Holy Ghost, on the displaying of which, not only the craftsmen of Edinburgh, but those of all Scotland, were bound to appear in arms, under the Convener of the Trades. The fragment of it that remains, shows that its colour was blue, crossed by the white saltire of St. Andrew.