42. Washington's Book-Plate.
As Washington himself suggested the first design, and had introduced the second, it is not improbable, and, indeed, it is recorded that he actually had somewhat to do with the designing of the final one.[113] However this last report may be, his friends and admirers most certainly had, and the similarity between the design of the final flag and the coat-of-arms of the Washington family points to the source from which they deduced the completed design.
Upon the tombstones of the family in Sulgrave Church, Northamptonshire, England, and upon the old manor house occupied by them in the time of Henry VIII., is to be seen the shield (41) of the Weshyntons,[114] or Washingtons, an old English county family, who traced their lineage back into the fifteenth century.
John Washington, a descendant of this family, had been a loyal cavalier, standing staunchly by his King, Charles I. When Cromwell and the Roundheads came into power, the Royalist Washington emigrated, in 1657, to Virginia, bringing out his family, and with them his family shield, on which are shown three stars, above alternate stripes of red and white. Having settled upon considerable estates, he and his descendants kept up the old ways, and maintained the style and country standards of their English forefathers.
George Washington, the subsequent President, was the great-grandson of the old loyalist colonist. He, too, served in the forces of his sovereign, King George III., and maintained the old family traditions and habits in the same way as did all the "first families" of Virginia.
On the panels of his carriage were painted his family coat-of-arms. It appeared on the book-plate (42) of the books in his library, and the first commissions which, as commander-in-chief, he issued to the officers of the Continental army were sealed with his family seal (43).
43. Washington's Seals.
Thus the suggestion for the further alteration was ready to hand. The similarity of one portion of the design already existing could not fail to have been noticed, for the stripes on the Washington coat-of-arms were alternately red and white, as were also those on the Grand Union.
It had been suggested that the idea of the "new" constellation was derived from the analogy of the "old" constellation of Orion containing thirteen stars, and that the form of the stars was taken from a seal said to have belonged to John Adams, one of the committee for designing the flag.[115]