Danville intelligencer. [volume] (Danville, Pa.) 1859-1907, 1907-02-08
THE FLAG In HISTORY
ORIGIN OF NATIONAL eMBLEMS OF
THE OLD WORLD

Joan of Arc and the White Banner of
France-The TricoIor of Holland.
st. Augustine, the Missionary, In
troduced Flags Into England.
The first western sovereign to adopt
flag was Clovis, king of the Franks.
After his conversion to Christianity in
the fifth century he took the 'chape de
st. Martin" as his standard. This,
according to some writers, was actu-
ally part of the cloak which the sanity
bishop of Tours cut In two in order to
share it with beggar at Amlens. More
credible authorities, however, assert
that it was the blue flag of st. Mar
tins abbey.
After Clovis, tile Merovinglan kings
seem to have returned to the ancient
emblems. They were content to fight
under eagles, flowers, crosses or the
images of saints until the time Of Char
lemagne, who, if an old mosaic in the
Church of st. John Lateran at Rome
Is to be believed, reintroduced the blue
flag embellished with six red roses.
The color of the French flag was
changed in 1924, when Louis the Fat
carried the red orihamb of st. Denis
in his struggles against the German
emperor Henry V. This continued to
be the official French flag down to the
battle of Agincourt in 1415. In the
meantime the blue flag had again made
its appearance, now decorated with the
feur-de-lis instead of the roses of
Charlemagne. In this form it was car
ried at Acre and Crecy and Poitiers,
until in the fifteenth century it be-
came the banner of France.
The first white flag in French histo-
ry was the banner of the Virgin Mary
borne by Joan of Arc in her heroic
campaigns for the defense of the dau-
phin. A pure white flag was occasion
ally used by Francis |. in his struggles
against the Emperor Charles ", but
it did not become the permanent royal
banner until Henry ~, the first Bour-
bon, ascended the throne in 1889.
The tricolor of the French revolution
was a compromise. The cockades of
the revolutionsts We're composed of
two colors, the red of the Paris COM
mune and the blue of the ancient mon.
archy. In the troubled times just pre-
ceding the deposition and execution of
Louis XVI, Lafayette, to signify the
desire of the people for a reconcilia-
ton with their king, added the Bour.
bon white to the cockade. The tricolor
as a national emblem was adopted by
the convention in 1874.
Long before this, however, the tri.
color had been the national dag Of
Holland. The Dutch were in fact the
first to use it. When the United Prov
inces gained their independence from
Spain in the sixteenth century, accord
ing to favorite old story which can
not be authenticated, they invited Hen
ry of Navarro to choose their colors,
and he suggested orange, blue and
white. Whether he selected this COM
bination or not, such were the colors
of Holland until some time in the sev.
enteenth century, when the orange was
replaced by red. When William of
Orange became king of England in
i69S he crossed the channel under the
red, white and blu
The early inhabitants of England,
like those of other countries, used en-
blematic devices of one kind or an
other, that of the Saxons being white
horse. The Introduction of flags into
England is ascribed to the missionary
st. Augustine and his followers, who
after the conversion of King Ethelbert,
according to the Venerable Bede, en-
tered Canterbury in procession, chant.
ing and bearing small banners.
Since the fourteenth century the cross
of st. George has been the emblem of
the British nation. Before that time 1t
was worn on the armor by the cru
saders, among whom it came to be
known as the Jack" During the
bloody civil wars of the fifteenth cen
tury it was practically superseded by
the roses, white and red, and in 1905
by proclamation of James |. it was
finally replaced by red flag with the
Jack in the upper inside corner. The
red standard of Great Britain did not
attain its present form, however until
after the union with Ireland in 1901.
By parliamentary enactment in 1901
the present union Jack was brought
into being by the addition of the cross
of st. Patrick.
Waving flags are said to have been
first brought to Spain by the Saracens.
The present Spanish colors, red and
yellow, came from the old shields of
CASTLE and Aragon.
The Austrian black and yellow were
the colors of the Holy Roman Empire
They were adopted, so the story goes,
by Frederick Barbarossa, whose fancy
was captured at a ceremony in Mainz
by the black and gold flooring of the
hall.
The crescent was originally the spe-
cial mark of Constantinople, where for
centuries it was used as a Christian
symbol. There it was that the Turks
first found it when they captured the
city in 1853. Even today 1t may be
found side by side with the cross on
the churches In Moscow and other
Russian cities, where it is used to indi-
cate the Byzantine origin of the Rus
sian faith.-New York Tribune.
Cy,rfstxnas UsIaud