23 October 2023
‘A sparkling tour through the stories of the symbols we know so well’ – Tim Marshall
Starting with flags that we know, this captivating history explains the origins and hidden meanings of flags, taking a chatty but always entertaining path through this universal subject.
Each chapter starts with a well-known flag and shows how that flag led to a number of other flags – so, for example, how the French tricolor led to the red, white and green tricolor of Italy, and then to a host of other tricolors in different parts of the world.
Many of the over 200 colour illustrations feature alternative versions of existing flags – the flags that might have been – such as the red Canadian maple leaf between two bands of blue, representing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
This entertaining and very likeable history of flags was written by Ukrainian businessman and ex-cabinet minister Dmytro Dubilet and first published in Ukrainian six months before the start of the Ukrainian-Russian war.
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The Union Jack
Once upon a time, many centuries ago, a small settlement near Beirut in Lebanon faced a serious problem – a dragon settled next to it. The monster constantly demanded victims. Initially, the dragon was content with sheep, but at some point he decided he preferred eating people. Every day, the inhabitants of the city sacrificed their children to the dragon. Finally came the turn of the daughter of the local ruler. The unfortunate girl was dressed in a beautiful outfit, adorned with gold and taken to be devoured by the dragon. But, fortunately, at that very moment a Roman soldier and a devout Christian named George was passing by. He fought with the dragon, defeated it and dragged it to the village. There he announced that he would kill the monster if the locals converted to Christianity. All means are good in missionary work.
I cannot know whether this dragon story is true, but today George is one of the most revered saints in the Christian world, among Catholics and Orthodox. Moreover, George is also respected by Muslims.
We vexillologists also deeply revere St George. After all, it was the St George’s cross that formed the basis of the English flag, as well as many other banners.
The origins of the English flag can be traced back to the Crusades, with the cross representing the country’s link to Christianity. Henry II of England used a white cross, but at some point the English forces began to use a red cross instead. One legend has it that Henry’s son, Richard the Lionheart, adopted the red cross for the Third Crusade to symbolise St George, as it was at about this time that St George was made the patron saint of England.
Richard spent almost all his money on equipping his army, but the campaign ended in failure, for he managed to quarrel with almost all his allies. Relations with the French king Philip II deteriorated after he refused to marry Richard’s sister. And there was a quarrel with Leopold V, Duke of Austria, after the fall of the Palestinian city of Acre; when the banners of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, England, France and Leopold’s ducal flag were raised on one of the captured city’s walls, but Richard ordered Leopold’s colours to be removed.
This banner incident is another example of how flags can influence the course of history. It is believed that it was why Leopold arrested Richard a couple of years later, when he was finally returning home from the Crusade. Then almost all the inhabitants of England had to chip in money to ransom Richard.
The main rival of European kings in that campaign was the legendary Muslim ruler Saladin, who also left his mark on world heraldry. We will talk about him in another chapter.
Richard left another vexillological trace in history by giving the world three lions, which became the coat of arms of England. We will meet English lions in this book more than once, because they are not only on the British coat of arms but also on many flags around the world.
While visiting the Tower of London I was amused to see these lions painted on the mantelpiece in the bedroom of King Edward I, who lived a century after Richard. It was evident that the artist had only a rough
idea of what lions looked like, so he depicted them very much like people with tails. The flag of England with a red cross on a white background became the first layer (to use Photoshop terms) on the flag of Great Britain.
The next milestone in the development of the British flag came after Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, without any direct heirs, and the Scottish king James VI came to the English throne as James I. So England and Scotland had the same monarch, while formally remaining separate countries. The flag of the new union was obtained by superimposing the English cross of St George on the Scottish cross of St Andrew.
According to the Bible, St Andrew was the first disciple of Christ (which is why he is sometimes known as Andrew the First-Called). He was crucified for his faith, just like Christ, but his cross was X-shaped.
The question of whose cross should be on top was far from a purely aesthetic issue. Although the union was formally equal, the English were somewhat ‘more equal’, so, in 1606, the English cross was placed on top of the Scottish one, which was not to the liking of many Scots at the time. That is why Scotland had an unofficial version of the union flag with the white cross over the red one. It is thought that Scottish ships flew flags with this unofficial design during the seventeenth century.