[CHAPTER XIX.]
THE UNION JACK OF GEORGE III., 1801.
THE PRESENT UNION JACK.
We come now to the formation of the first, and present, three-crossed Jack, the "Red, White and Blue," of story and of song, being the third Union Jack.
For forty years King George III. had reigned as King of Great Britain and Ireland. The Union Parliament, created under Queen Anne, had administered the affairs of England and of Scotland, but the Parliament of Ireland had continued meeting separately, and the two-crossed Union Jack of 1707 had been the only Union Jack authorized to be raised in the British realm. In the forty-first year of the King's reign an Act was passed in the Parliament of Ireland, whereby it became, as had the Parliaments of the two other kingdoms, incorporated in the one Union Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. As previously, so now again the Parliamentary and completed union of the kingdoms having been arrived at, the Irish Jack was directed to be joined with the Jacks of England and Scotland.
The same deliberate procedure for making an alteration in the Union flag was followed as under Queen Anne: First, an Act of Parliament creating a further union, the call of the Sovereign as the supreme head of the nations, the appointment of a Committee of the Privy Council to consider the drafts of the changes to be made, then an Order in Council, and, finally, the issue of a proclamation by the King.
The record[125] states: "On the 5th November, 1800, the King in Council was pleased to approve the report of a Committee of the Privy Council, that the Union Flag should be altered according to the draft marked 'C,' in which the cross of St. George is conjoined with the crosses of St. Andrew and St. Patrick."
