CHAPTER III.
FAMOUS AND ANCIENT BANNERS.
In all ages and in all armies, the greatest veneration has ever been manifested by soldiers for their ensigns and standards, as being the veritable representation and embodiment of the national glory and honour, or it might be of a righteous cause. In the ages of classical antiquity, the religious care taken of these emblems was extraordinary. The soldiers worshipped them, and swore by them, as some European troops still do. The Roman Legionaries incurred certain death if they lost them in battle; and Livy tells us, that to animate them, the standards were sometimes thrown among the enemy, that they might be recaptured at all hazards.
In all armies at the present day, regimental standards are consecrated by a religious ceremony, have the highest military honours paid to them, and when too old for use, are solemnly deposited in a church, or sometimes burned, or buried with all the honours of war; and by the Queen's Regulations (Section VII.) are finally marched from their last parade, to the air of "Auld lang Syne."
Among the most famous banners of antiquity, may be enumerated the Labaram of Constantine, the Oriflamme of France, those of Otho IV., of Philip Augustus, of Bayard, Joan of Arc, and Mahomet.
Like most ancient banners, the origin of the Labaram was alleged to be miraculous, and surrounded by fables, though the reign of Constantine was so glorious, that it required not the meretricious aid of prodigy. When on his march against Maxentius, he is said to have seen in the heavens a cross of flame like the Greek letter X inverted in the form of a square cross, and in Greek around it, the words Conquer by this. Eusebius further relates, that next night, the Saviour appeared to him, and ordered him to make a military standard, in the form of the cross he had seen, which he did, and was always successful in war. Its name has not unfrequently been written Laborum, to signify that the cross should put an end to the labours and persecutions of the Christians; and it was supposed the guards to whom this miraculous banner was intrusted, were always invulnerable in battle.
At the battle of Bouvines, the imperial standard of Otho IV., like that of the English—the banner of St. John of Beverley on the field of Northallerton—was hoisted from a frame, raised on four wheels. Upon it was painted a dragon, above which was a gilded eagle. On that day the royal standard of France was a gilded staff, with a white silk colour, powdered with fleurs-de-lis, which had become the national arms. "The old crowns of the kings of Lombardy," says Voltaire, "of which there are very exact prints in Muratori, are mounted with this ornament, which is nothing more than the head of a spear, tied with two other pieces of crooked iron."
The banner used by the Chevalier Bayard, when he gallantly took command of Mézieres, and defended it against 40,000 Spaniards under Charles V., is still preserved in the Hôtel de Ville of that place.
Joan of Arc, bore with her in all her battles and sieges a consecrated banner, which was believed to be miraculous, and was revered as holy. It was white silk, and bore a figure representing the Supreme Being, grasping the world, and surrounded by fleurs-de-lis. Clad in white armour, with this standard in her hands, she entered Orleans on the 29th of April, 1429, in the face of a vastly superior English force, and lodged it with herself, in the house of Jacques Bouchier. She had previously declared, at the moment when Dunois, repulsed, was sounding the retreat, that when her standard touched the city wall, the assailants should enter. "It was touched. The assailants burst in. On the next day the siege was abandoned and the force which had conducted it withdrew in good order to the north." Joan bore this standard, also, at the capture of Jargeau, when Suffolk was taken prisoner and his garrison put to the sword, and it was in her hand, at her crowning glory, the coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims. She stood with it before the high altar, says Lord Mahon. "It had shared the danger," she observed, "and it had a right to share the honour."—(Monstrelet, &c.)
When tried as a witch and heretic by the Bishop of Beauvais and other tools of the English, they asked her "why she put trust in her standard, which had been consecrated by magical incantation?" But she replied that she put trust alone in the Supreme Being, whose image was impressed upon it. Then they demanded why she carried in her hand that standard at the anointment and coronation of Charles at Rheims; and again she answered, that the person who shared the danger was entitled to share the glory.
But the most famous banner in Europe or Asia at one time was undoubtedly that of the Knights of the Temple. It was formed of cloth, striped black and white, called in old French Bauseant, a word which became the battle cry of the Templars. It bore on it the red cross of the order, with the humble and pious inscription, Non nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo, da gloriam (Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name give the glory!)