Flags: Some Account of their History and Uses

by Andrew Macgeorge

In 1603, on the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, the first union flag was formed by the combination of St. George's cross with the saltire of Scotland; but this flag appears to have been used for ships only. The order by the king for its construction and use bears to have been made "in consequence of certain differences between his subjects of North and South Britain anent the bearing of their flags;" and in the proclamation issued in 1606, King James appoints that "from henceforth all our subjects of this Isle and Kingdom of Great Britain shall bear in the maintop the red cross commonly called St. George's Cross, and the white cross commonly called St. Andrew's Cross, joined together according to a form made by our heralds, and sent by us to our admiral to be published to our said subjects." This was the first union flag. The Scots being, however, sensitively jealous of England, insisted on using their own national flag as well as the union, and it was no doubt owing to this that the proclamation goes on to provide that "in their foretop our subjects of South Britain shall wear the red cross only as they were wont, and our subjects of North Britain in their foretop the white cross only, as they were accustomed." In the ensign the union was not worn till a considerable time afterwards—the union by itself being then as now worn by the king's ships as a jack at the bowsprit.

On the death of Charles I. the Commonwealth Parliament, professing to be the Parliament of England only, and of Ireland as a dependency, expunged the Scottish cross from the flag with its blue field. The flag of command ordered to take the place of the union, and to be borne by the admirals of the respective squadrons, at the main, fore, and mizen, is described[36] as "the arms of England and Ireland in two escutcheons on a red flag within a compartment or,"—that of the admiral, according to Mr. Pepys, being encircled by a laurel wreath, while those of the vice and rear-admirals were plain. The ensigns showed the Irish harp on the fly.[37]

[ [36] Order dated 5th March, 1649.

[ [37] Heraldry of the Sea, p. 8.

On the Restoration in 1660 the union flag was reintroduced, and when England and Scotland became constitutionally united in 1707, this was confirmed, with an order that it should be used "in all flags, banners, standards, and ensigns, both at sea and land." The order in council bears "that the flaggs be according to the draft marked C, wherein the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew are conjoined;" but none of the drafts appear in the Register. A representation of this flag will be found in Plate III. No. I., and there being no draft to copy, I have given it according to the verbal blazon, viz. azure a saltire argent surmounted by a cross gules fimbriated of the second—that is, the St. George's cross with a narrow white border.

On the union with Ireland in the beginning of the present century the Irish saltire was introduced. The St. George's cross remained as it was, but the saltires of Scotland and Ireland were placed side by side, but "counterchanged"—that is, in the first and third divisions or quarters, the white, as senior, is uppermost, and in the second and fourth the red is uppermost. The "verbal blazon," or written direction, is very distinct, but in making the flag, or rather in showing pictorially how it was to be represented, a singular and very absurd error occurred, which, in the manufacture of our flags, has been continued to the present day, and which it may be interesting to explain.

The verbal blazon is contained in the minute by the king in council, and in the proclamation which followed on it, issued on 1st of January, 1801. I need not give the technical words; suffice to say that the flag is appointed to be blue, with the three crosses, or rather, the one cross and two saltires combined. And, in order to meet a law in heraldry, that colour is not to be placed on colour, or metal upon metal, it is directed that where the red crosses of England and Ireland come in contact with the blue ground of the flag, they are to be "fimbriated"—that is, separated from the blue by a very narrow border of one of the metals—in this case silver, or white. Of heraldic necessity this border of both the red crosses fell to be of the same breadth. To use the words of the written blazon, the St. George's cross is to be "fimbriated as the saltire;" a direction so plain that the merest tyro in heraldry could not fail to understand it, and be able to paint the flag accordingly.

Let me premise another thing. It is a universal rule in heraldry that the verbal blazon, when such exists, is alone of authority. Different artists may, from ignorance or from carelessness, express the drawing differently from the directions before them, and this occurs every day; but no one is or can be misled by that if he has the verbal blazon to refer to.

Now, in the important case of the Union flag it so happened that the artist who, according to the practice usual in such cases, was instructed to make a drawing of the flag on the margin of the king's order in council, was either careless or ignorant or stupid. Most probably he was all three, and here is how he depicted it. The horizontal lines represent blue and the perpendicular red; the rest is white. (See Fig. 26.)