Flags: Some Account of their History and Uses - Andrew Macgeorge

Standards borne by subjects were, in early times, according to the Tudor MS. to be "slitt at the end," but they appear to have been also borne square. This is the form in an old standard of Richard, Earl of Warwick—circa 1437—bearing his badge of the bear and ragged staff (Fig. 20). Shakespeare [29] alludes to this device when he puts into the mouth of Warwick the words—

"Now by my father's badge, old Neville's crest,
The rampant bear chained to the ragged staff."

Fig. 20.—Standard of the Earl of Warwick, A.D. 1437.

But Shakespeare was out in his heraldry here, first in confounding the badge with a crest, and secondly in calling it Neville's, for the bear and the ragged staff had been the badge not of the Nevilles but of the Beauchamps, who preceded Warwick in the earldom.[30] This old Earl of Warwick had a similar device on the flag which he flew in his ship. It was a long flag, having the cross of St. George on the upper part—then the bear and ragged staff, and the remainder covered with ragged staffs. It is interesting to note that the account for this and other flags made for the earl in 1437, is preserved. The one just referred to is described as "a great Stremour for the ship of xi yerdis length and viij yerdis in brede," and the price for making it was "j^li vi^s viii^d."[31]

[ [29] King Henry VI. part ii. act v. sc. 1.

[ [30] Seton's Scottish Heraldry, p. 252.

[ [31] Antiquities of Warwickshire.

In the Advocates' Library there is preserved an interesting flag, which is said to have been the standard borne by the Earl Marshall at the battle of Flodden (Fig. 21). It is thus described in the paper which accompanies it: "The standard of the Earl Marshall of Scotland, carried at the battle of Flodden, 1513, by black John Skirving of Plewland Hill, his standard-bearer. Skirving was taken prisoner, having previously, however, concealed the banner about his person. The relic was handed down in the Skirving family, and presented to the Faculty of Advocates by William Skirving of Edinburgh, in the beginning of the present century. The arms and motto are those of the Keith family."