FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Sphenogyne. Sphenogyne piliflora.
Dedicated to St. Saturninus.
November 30.
St. Andrew, Apostle. St. Narses, Bp. and Companions. Sts. Sapor and Isaac. Bps. Mahanes, Abraham, and Simeon, A. D. 339.
St. Andrew.
Patron Saint of Scotland.
This saint is in the church of England calendar and the almanacs. He was one of the apostles. It is affirmed that he was put to death in the year 69, at Patræ, in Achaia, by having been scourged, and then fastened with cords to a cross, in which position he remained “teaching and instructing the people all the time,” until his death, at the end of two days. It is the common opinion that the cross of St. Andrew was in the form of the letter X, styled a cross decussate, composed of two pieces of timber crossing each other obliquely in the middle. That such crosses were sometimes used is certain, yet no clear proofs are produced as to the form of St. Andrew’s cross. A part of what was said to have been this cross was carried to Brussels, by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, and Brabant, who in honour of it, instituted the knights of the golden fleece, who, for the badge of their order, wear a figure of this cross, called St. Andrew’s cross, or the cross of Burgundy. The Scots honour St. Andrew as principal patron of their country, and their historians tell us, that a certain abbot called Regulus, brought thither from Constantinople in 369, certain relics of this apostle, which he deposited in a church that he built in his honour, with a monastery called Abernethy, where now the city of St. Andrew stands. Many pilgrims resorted thither from foreign countries, and the Scottish monks of that place were the first who were culdees. The Muscovites say, he preached among them, and claim him as the principal titular saint of their empire. Peter the Great instituted the first order of knighthood under his name. This is the order of the blue ribbon; the order of the red ribbon, or of St. Alexander Newski, was instituted by his widow and successor to the throne, the empress Catherine.[398]
Naogeorgus, in the words of his translator Barnaby Googe, says,