A Complete Guide to Heraldry

by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

The banner of St. George, which is a white flag with a plain red cross of St. George throughout, is now appropriated to the Order of the Garter, of which St. George is the patron saint, though I am by no means inclined to assert that it would be incorrect to make use of it upon a church which happened to be specifically placed under the patronage of St. George.

The white ensign, which is a white flag bearing the cross of St. George and in the upper quarter next to the staff a reproduction of the Union device, belongs to the Royal Navy, and certain privileged individuals to whom the right has been given by a specific warrant. The blue ensign, which is a plain blue flag with the Union device on a canton in the upper corner next the staff, belongs to the Royal Naval Reserve; and the red ensign, which is the same as the former, except that a red flag is substituted for the blue one, belongs to the ships of the merchant service. These three flags have been specifically called into being by specific warrants for certain purposes which are stated in these warrants, and these purposes being wholly connected with the sea, neither the blue, the red, nor the white ensign ought to be hoisted on land by anybody. Of course there is no penalty for doing so on

land, though very drastic penalties can be enforced for misuse of these ensigns on the water, a step which is taken frequently enough. For a private person to use any one of these three flags on land for a private purpose, the only analogy which I can suggest to bring home to people the absurdity of such action would be to instance a private person for his own private pleasure adopting the exact uniform of some regiment whenever he might feel inclined to go bathing in the sea. If he were to do so, he would find under the recent Act that he had incurred the penalty, which would be promptly enforced, for bringing His Majesty's uniform into disrepute. It is much to be wished that the penalties exacted for the wrongful display of these flags at sea should be extended to their abuse on shore.

The development of the Union Jack and the warrants relating to it are dealt with herein by the Rev. J. R. Crawford, M.A., in a subsequent chapter, and I do not propose to further deal with the point, except to draw attention to a proposal, which is very often mooted, that some change or addition to the Union Jack should be made to typify the inclusion of the colonies.

But to begin with, what is the Union Jack? Probably most would be inclined to answer, "The flag of the Empire." It is nothing of the kind. It is in a way stretching the definition to describe it as the King's flag. Certainly the design of interlaced crosses is a badge of the King's, but that badge is of a later origin than the flag.

The flag itself is the fighting emblem of the Sovereign, which the Sovereign has declared shall be used by his soldiers or sailors for fighting purposes under certain specified circumstances. That it is used, even officially, in all sorts of circumstances with which the King's warrants are not concerned is beside the matter, for it is to the Royal Warrants that one must refer for the theory of the thing.

Now let us go further back, and trace the "argent, a cross gules," the part which is England's contribution to the Union Jack, which itself is a combination of the "crosses" of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick. The theory of one is the theory of the three, separately or conjoined.

"Argent, a cross gules" was never the coat of arms of England (except under the Commonwealth, when its use for armorial purposes may certainly be disregarded), and the reason it came to be regarded as the flag of England is simply and solely because fighting was always done under the supposed patronage of some saint, and England fought, not under the arms of England, but under the flag of St. George, the patron saint of England and of the Order of the Garter. The battle-cry "St. George for Merrie England!" is too well known to need more than the passing mention. Scotland fought under St. Andrew; Ireland, by a similar analogy, had for its patron saint St. Patrick (if

indeed there was a Cross of St. Patrick before one was needed for the Union flag, which is a very doubtful point), and the Union Jack was not the combination of three territorial flags, but the combination of the recognised emblems of the three recognised saints, and though England claimed the sovereignty of France, and for that reason quartered the arms of France, no Englishman bothered about the patronage of St. Denis, and the emblem of St. Denis was never flown in this country. The fact that no change was ever made in the flag to typify Hanover, whilst Hanover duly had its place upon the arms, proves that the flag was recognised to be, and allowed to remain, the emblem of the three patron saints under whose patronage the British fought, and not the badge of any sovereignty or territorial area. If the colonies had already any saint of their own under whose patronage they had fought in bygone days, or in whose name they wished to fight in the future, there might be reason for including the emblem of that saint upon the fighting flag of the Empire; but they have no recognised saintly patrons, and they may just as well fight for our saints as choose others for themselves at so late a day; but having a flag which is a combination of the emblems of three saints, and which contains nothing that is not a part of those emblems, to make any addition heraldic or otherwise to it now would, in my opinion, be best expressed by the following illustration. Imagine three soldiers in full and complete uniform, one English, one Scottish, and one Irish, it being desired to evolve a uniform that should be taken from all three for use by a Union regiment. A tunic from one, trousers from another, and a helmet from a third, might be blended into a very effective and harmonious composite uniform. Following the analogy of putting a bordure, which is not the emblem of a saint, round the recognised emblems of the three recognised saints, and considering it to be in keeping because the bordure was heraldic and the emblems heraldic, one might argue, that because a uniform was clothing as was also a ballet-dancer's skirt, therefore a ballet-dancer's skirt outside the whole would be in keeping with the rest of the uniform. For myself I should dislike any addition to the Union device, as much as we should deride the donning of tulle skirts outside their tunics and trousers by the brigade of Guards.

The flag which should float from a church tower should have no more on it than the recognised ecclesiastical emblems of the saint to whom it is dedicated: the keys of St. Peter, the wheel of St. Catherine, the sword of St. Paul, the cross and martlets of St. Edmund, the lily of St. Mary, the emblem of the Holy Trinity, or whatever the emblem may be of the saint in question. (The alternative for a church is the banner of St. George, the patron saint of the realm.) The flags upon public buildings should bear the arms of the corporate bodies to whom those