The other pattern in use is that established in 1900 by the War Office, in an attempt to comply with the literal terms of the Proclamation of 1st January, 1801, as interpreted by modern heraldic definitions[211]. In this pattern the two saltires are of equal breadth, but the "fimbriation" of the St George's cross has been reduced to the same width as that of St Patrick's saltire.

However, these differences are of no serious importance, and indeed this flag seems doomed to misrepresentation, which extends even to its name. A "Union Jack" is, correctly speaking, a small Union flag intended to be flown in one particular place, the bows of one of H.M. ships: yet for many years past this technical distinction has been lost sight of[212] and the misapplication of the term "Jack" has become almost universal, so much so that we have the Government solemnly announcing that "The Union Jack should be regarded as the national flag[213]."

The Union Pendant, that is a pendant with St George's Cross at the head and with the fly striped longitudinally red, white and blue (see [Plate V], fig. 2) appears to have been first instituted in 1661 as a pendant which combined the colours of the Union flag and which, like that flag, was to be flown only by H.M. ships. It was afterwards known as the "Ordinary" or "Common" Pendant[214]. It went out of use when the squadronal colours were abandoned in 1864, though it survives in a smaller form (in which the fly is not slit) to this day as a signal that the ship's company is engaged in divine service.

FOOTNOTES:

[141] Cambridge Modern History, iii, 360.

[142] Mr Oppenheim suggests that this was partly due to James's natural vanity and his jealousy of anything that could remind the English seamen of their late Queen.

[143] This was sent to the Lord High Admiral to be communicated to the Navy and Mercantile Marine, vide draft letter S. P. D. Jas I, App. xxxviii, 16. An earlier draft altered from a signet warrant of James I, and now in part illegible, is to be found in S. P. D. Jas I, App. xxxv, 23, misplaced among the papers of 1603. The deleted ninth and tenth lines, however, read: "Given under [our signet?] at our Pallace of Westmr the first day of April in the fourth year of or raigne of Great Britaine ffrance and Ireland."

A writer on the Union flag in the Archeological Journal, 1891, misled by the date at the top of the page containing the entry of the above Proclamation in the Syllabus to Rymer's Foedera, has stated that there was an earlier proclamation issued in 1605; an error that has been repeated by several subsequent writers.

[144] The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vii, 498.

[145] The object of a fimbriation is to prevent colour touching colour or metal touching metal, and, according to modern heraldic rules, it should be as narrow as possible consistent with this result. White is of course a metal: "argent."