[Chapter II]
Early English, Scottish, and Irish Flags
[(i) ENGLAND]
So far as may be judged from the scanty records that remain, the ancient inhabitants of these islands do not seem to have known the use of flags until the Romans made them acquainted with their military signa. Adopted by the Saxons either directly from the Romans before they left their homes on the continent or from the Britons whom they subdued, flags formed, from the seventh century onwards, an important part of the regalia. Speaking of Eadwin King of Northumbria, under date 628 a.d., the Venerable Bede says:
his dignity was so great throughout his dominions that banners (vexilla) were not only borne before him in battle, but even in time of peace when he rode about his cities and towns or provinces the standard bearer was wont to go before him. And when he walked about the streets that sort of standard which the Romans call Tufa, and the English Tuuf, was borne before him[64].
A few years later, on the translation of the bones of King Oswald, the royal vexillum of purple and gold (auro et purpura compositum) was placed above the tomb, a practice that was followed through many centuries.
The Saxons of Wessex adopted as their principal war standard the dragon, which in various forms was destined to appear at many crucial moments in English history. At the battle of Burford in 752, according to Henry of Huntingdon, the Wessex standard was a golden dragon, while the Mercians used the vexillum[65].
The Danish vikings, who commenced their descents upon the southern coasts of England in the middle of the ninth century, had as their ensign a raven embroidered in a flag, which appears to have been used for divination. In the year 878 Hubba
the brother of Hingwar and Halfdene, with 23 ships ... sailed to Devon, where with 1200 others he met with a miserable death, being slain before the castle of Cynuit[66]. There (the Christians[67]) gained a very large booty, and amongst other things the flag called Raven [68], for they say that the three sisters of Hingwar and Hubba, daughters of Lodobroch, wove that flag and got it ready in one day. They say moreover that in every battle wherever that flag went before them, if they were to gain the victory a live raven would appear flying in the middle of the flag, but if they were doomed to be defeated it would hang down motionless, and this often proved to be so[69].
From this description it is clear that the raven flag was attached by one side to a staff, instead of by the top to a crosspiece like the Roman vexillum. We meet with it next at the beginning of the eleventh century, when the Danish hordes again invaded England under Sweyn and Cnut and conquered it. The anonymous author of the Encomium of Queen Emma, the wife of Cnut, gives a description of the flag and attributes to it magical properties, in which he is good enough not to expect his readers to believe. He says: