In the description of one of the City pageants in honour of Henry VII. we find among the "baggs" (i.e., badges), "a rede rose and a wyght in his mydell, golde floures de luces, and portcullis also in golde," the "wallys" of the Pavilion whereon these were displayed being "chekkyrs of whyte and grene."
The only other flag form to which we need make any very definite reference is the Guidon. The word is derived from the
French guide-homme, but in the lax spelling of mediæval days it undergoes many perversions, such as guydhome, guydon, gytton, geton, and such-like more or less barbarous renderings. Guidon is the regulation name now applied to the small standards borne by the squadrons of some of our cavalry regiments. The Queen's guidon is borne by the first squadron; this is always of crimson silk; the others are the colour of the regimental facings. The modern cavalry guidon is square in form, and richly embroidered, fringed, and tasselled. A mediæval writer on the subject lays down the law that "a guydhome must be two and a half yardes or three yardes longe, and therein shall be no armes putt, but only the man's crest, cognizance, and device, and from that, from his standard or streamer a man may flee; but not from his banner or pennon bearinge his armes." The guidon is largely employed at State or ceremonious funeral processions; we see it borne, for instance, in the illustrations of the funeral of Monk in 1670, of Nelson in 1806, of Wellington in 1852. In all these cases it is rounded in form, as in Fig. [28]. Like the standard, the guidon bears motto and device, but it is smaller, and has not the elongated form, nor does it bear the Cross of St. George.
In divers countries and periods very diverse forms may be encountered, and to these various names have been assigned, but it is needless to pursue their investigation at any length, as in some cases the forms are quite obsolete; in other cases, while its form is known to us its name is lost, while in yet other instances we have various old names of flags mentioned by the chroniclers and poets to which we are unable now to assign any very definite notion of their form. In some cases, again, the form we encounter may be of some eccentric individuality that no man ever saw before, or ever wants to see again, or, as in Fig. [33], so slightly divergent from ordinary type as to scarcely need a distinctive name. One of the flags represented in the Bayeux tapestry is semi-circular. Fig. [32] defies classification, unless we regard it as a pennon that, by snipping, has travelled three-quarters of the way towards being a banner. Fig. [35], sketched from a MS. of the early part of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum, is of somewhat curious and abnormal form. It is of religious type, and bears the Agnus Dei. The original is in a letter of Philippe de Mezières, pleading for peace and friendship between Charles VI. of France and Richard II. of England.
Flags are nowadays ordinarily made of bunting, a woollen fabric which, from the nature of its texture and its great toughness and durability, is particularly fitted to stand wear and tear. It comes from the Yorkshire mills in pieces of forty yards in length, while the width varies from four to thirty-six inches. Flags are
only printed when of small size, and when a sufficient number will be required to justify the expense of cutting the blocks. Silk is also used, but only for special purposes.
Flag-devising is really a branch of heraldry, and should be in accordance with its laws, both in the forms and the colours introduced. Yellow in blazonry is the equivalent of gold, and white of silver, and it is one of the requirements of heraldry that colour should not be placed upon colour, nor metal on metal. Hence the red and blue in the French tricolour (Fig. [191]) are separated by white; the black and red of Belgium (Fig. [236]) by yellow. Such unfortunate combinations as the yellow, blue, red, of Venezuela (Fig. [170]); the yellow, red, green of Bolivia (Fig. [171]); the red and blue of Hayti (Fig. 178); the white and yellow of Guatemala (Fig. [162]), are violations of the rule in countries far removed from the influence of heraldic law. This latter instance is a peculiarly interesting one; it is the flag of Guatemala in 1851, while in 1858 this was changed to that represented in Fig. [163]. In the first case the red and the blue are in contact, and the white and the yellow; while in the second the same colours are introduced, but with due regard to heraldic law, and certainly with far more pleasing effect.
One sees the same obedience to this rule in the special flags used for signalling, where great clearness of definition at considerable distances is an essential. Such combinations as blue and black, red and blue, yellow and white, carry their own condemnation with them, as anyone may test by actual experiment; stripes of red and blue, for instance, at a little distance blending into purple, while white and yellow are too much alike in strength, and when the yellow has become a little faded and the white a little dingy they appear almost identical. We have this latter combination in Fig. [198], the flag of the now vanished Papal States. It is a very uncommon juxtaposition, and only occurs in this case from a special religious symbolism into which we need not here enter. The alternate red and green stripes in Fig. [63] are another violation of the rule, and have a very confusing effect.[[14]]
The colours of by far the greatest frequency of occurrence are red, white, and blue; yellow also is not uncommon; orange is only found once, in Fig. [249], where it has a special significance, since this is the flag of the Orange Free State. Green occurs sparingly. Italy (Fig. [197]) is perhaps the best known example. We also find it in the Brazilian flag (Fig. [169]), the Mexican (Fig. [172]), in the Hungarian tricolor (Fig. [214]), and in Figs. [199], [201], [209], the flags
of smaller German States, but it is more especially associated with Mohammedan States, as in Figs. [58], [63], [64], [235]. Black is found but seldom, but as heraldic requirements necessitate that it should be combined either with white or yellow, it is, when seen, exceptionally brilliant and effective. We see it, for example, in the Royal Standard of Spain, (Fig. [194]), in Figs. [207] and [208], flags of the German Empire, in Fig. [226], the Imperial Standard of Russia, and in Fig. [236], the brilliant tricolor of the Belgians.[[15]]