buildings belong. The flag to be flown by a private person, as the law now stands, should bear that person's private arms, if he has any, and if he has not he should be content to forego the pleasures arising from the use of bunting. A private flag should be double its height in length. The entire surface should be occupied by the coat of arms.
These flags of arms are banners, and it is quite a misnomer to term the banner of the Royal Arms the Royal Standard. The flags of arms hung over the stalls of the Knights of the Garter, St. Patrick, and the former Knights of the Bath are properly, and are always termed banners. The term standard properly refers to the long tapering flag used in battle, and under which an overlord mustered his retainers in battle. This did not display his armorial bearings. Next to the staff usually came the cross of St. George, which was depicted, of course, on a white field. This occupied rather less than one-third of the standard. The remainder of the standard was of the colour or colours of the livery, and thereupon was represented all sorts of devices, usually the badges and sometimes the crest. The motto was usually on transverse bands, which frequently divided the standard into compartments for the different badges. These mottoes from their nature are not war-cries, but undoubtedly relate and belong to the badges with which they appear in conjunction. The whole banner was usually fringed with the livery colours, giving the effect of a bordure compony. The use of standards does not seem, except for the ceremonial purposes of funerals, to have survived the Tudor period, this doubtless being the result of the creation of the standing army in the reign of Henry VIII. The few exotic standards, e.g., remaining from the Jacobite rebellion, seldom conform to the old patterns, but although the shape is altered, the artistic character largely remains in the regimental colours of the present day with their assorted regimental badges and scrolls with the names of battle honours.
With the recent revival of the granting of badges the standard has again been brought into use as the vehicle to carry the badge (Plate VIII.). The arms are now placed next the staff, and upon the rest of the field the badge is repeated or alternated with the crest. Badges and standards are now granted to any person already possessing a right to arms and willing to pay the necessary fees.
PLATE VIII.
The armorial use of the banner in connection with the display of heraldic achievements is very limited in this country. In the case of the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava the banner or flag is an integral and unchangeable part of the heraldic supporters, and in Ross-of-Bladensburg, e.g., it is similarly an integral part of the crest. In the warrant of augmentation granted to H.M. Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain on her marriage, banners of the Royal Arms of
England were placed in the paws of her supporters. Other cases where arms have been depicted on banners are generally no more than matters of artistic design; but in the arms of Scotland as matriculated in Lyon Register for King Charles II. the supporters are accompanied by banners, the dexter being of the arms of Scotland, and the sinister the banner of St. Andrew. These banners possess rather a different character, and approach very closely to the German use. The same practice has been followed in the seals of the Duchy of Lancaster, inasmuch as on the obverse of the seal of George IV. and the seal of Queen Victoria the Royal supporters hold banners of the arms of England and of the Duchy (i.e. England, a label for difference). James I. on his Great Seal had the banners of Cadwallader (azure, a cross patté fitché or) and King Edgar (azure, a cross patonce between four martlets or), and on the Great Seal of Charles I. the dexter supporter holds a banner of St. George, and the sinister a banner of St. Andrew.
Fig. 688.—"Middle" arms of the Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg. (From Ströhl's Deutsche Wappenrolle.)
Of the heraldic use of the banner in Germany Ströhl writes:—