These musings on heraldry's fabulous beasts have prompted e-mailed queries about authenticity, about our intellectual honesty, and about our drinking habits, and ribald comments on the origins of these beasts. To the second we answer that what we read of these creatures' performance we have to believe, because no one could invent such details. In our search for the origins of the Bruce family we examined in the first two instalments the traditional Viking and Normandy connections, and now in this new episode we prepare to look at Flanders and the possible origins of the Bruce's blue lion. The Union Flag was thus news, and we could postpone no longer. The next stage has been foreshadowed by the suggestion that the Patten recommendations will be more acceptable when British policemen in England and Scotland and Wales also renounce their oath of loyalty to the Queen.
Flags are more than just symbols.
The men and women who have died for them have earned the reverence we owe them. They must never become the playthings of politicians. We had promised to look at Chivalry at the turn of the millenium, and we intend to publish a series of articles, beginning in January, that will look at how its spirit has been observed down the centuries. In this issue we report a couple of recent incidents typical of much we should deplore today, together with the code on which the original concept is based. We cannot provide the room to publish all the queries we receive, but we did feel that an exception should be made for this one.