Representations of banners constantly occur in medieval pictures (fig. 131); and, as has been shown above, they are not infrequent upon seals.

Every one is familiar with the banner of the royal arms that betokens the presence of the King, and with our splendid national banner known as the Union Jack. The banner with the arms of the city that is flown above the Mansion House when the lord mayor is in residence is familiar to Londoners, and the citizens of Rochester are equally accustomed to see the banner of their city flying on Sundays and holidays from the great tower of their castle. Let a banner once be regarded in the light of a rectangular shield and its fitness to contain armorial bearings immediately becomes apparent. The King's banner is now always miscalled 'the royal standard,' even in official language, though heraldically it is not a standard at all, but simply a banner.

Medieval banners at first were oblong in shape, and set upright with a longer side next the staff. In the late thirteenth century pictures formerly in the painted chamber in the palace of Westminster the banners borne by the knights were more than twice as tall as they were broad. The same proportion survives even in the famous pictorial pageant of Richard Beauchamp earl of Warwick, drawn about 1493;[9] but the majority of the banners therein shown have a height one and three-quarter times the width, which is better for the display of heraldry. This is also the proportion of the banners on William lord Hungerford's seal (fig. 132), but the banners with impaled arms on lady Hungerford's seal are nearly square (fig. 133). On the monument in Westminster abbey church of Lewis lord Bourchier (ob. 1431) the large quartered banners at the ends, upheld by lions and eagles, are slightly less than a square and a half in area, and admirably proportioned for displaying arms (fig. 134). The banner of King Edward IV,[Pg 223]
[Pg 224] 'which also hung over his grave' in St. George's chapel in Windsor castle, is described as of 'Taffaty, and thereon painted quarterly France and England; it had in breadth three foot four inches, besides a Fringe of about an inch broad, and in depth five foot and four inches, besides the Fringe.'[10] Ashmole, in his description of the banners hung above the stalls of the Knights of the Garter, states (in 1672) that 'the fashion of the Soveraign's and all the Knight-Companions Banners are square; but it doth no where appear to us, of what size their Banners anciently were; yet in Queen Elizabeth's Reign, we find them two yards and a quarter long, and a yard and three quarters broad, beside the Fringe (which is made of Gold or Silver and Silk, of the colours in the Wreath) and thereon are wrought or beaten upon Taffaty-Sarcenet, double-Sarcenet, or rich Taffaty, with fine Gold and Colours, on both sides, the paternal Coat of the Knights Companion, together with his Quarterings, or so many of them as he please to make use of, wherein Garter is to take care that they be warrantly marshalled.... These Banners of Arms are fixed to the end of long Staves, painted in Oyl, formerly with the Colours of the Wreath, but now Red.'[11]

The longer form of banner may be tolerated for so simple a combination as the Union Jack, or even for such of its component parts as the cross of St. Andrew or the saltire of St. Patrick, but it is rarely possible so to arrange heraldry upon it as to look well, and even the cross of St. George looks better upright thus

than when extended unduly horizontally.

In the King's banner as at present borne it is practically impossible to draw the arms artistically, or with a proper balancing relation of field and charge (fig. 135). The leopards of England may be so outrageously lengthened and attenuated as nearly to fill the quarters allotted to them, but it is impracticable to display properly the upright form of the ramping lion of Scotland or to expand horizontally the Irish harp. In the banner, too, of the lord mayor of London as used on the Mansion House to-day, the sword of St. Paul in the quarter can only be drawn of the comparative size of Sir William Walworth's dagger, which it is in consequence so absurdly mistaken to be.

Were, however, the King's arms (see frontispiece) and those of his city of London placed on upright oblong or even square banners, all difficulties of drawing them would be avoided, and from appearing to be glaring examples of mean modern heraldry they would forthwith become fine pieces of artistic decoration.

A close approximation to the better way of displaying the King's arms is illustrated by the lately adopted banners of Queen Mary and Queen Alexandra, both of which show the Sovereign's arms impaling those of his consort. The King's arms are thus restricted to half the usual length of the present 'royal standard,' that is, to a square, and so can be drawn with less waste space on either side of the charges.

Whatever be their shape, banners, like shields, ought as a rule to be covered completely with the heraldry, like the banners of the Knights of the Garter at Windsor (which, though modern, are quite good in this respect) and those of more recent institution of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in St. Paul's cathedral church.

Examples are not lacking, even in the fifteenth century, of banners charged with regular heraldic achievements instead of arms, and quite an interesting series may be found among the Windsor stall-plates. Two small oblong plates of Sir Peter Courtenay and Henry lord FitzHugh are practically complete banners of their arms, but Walter lord Hungerford (after 1426) displays his arms, with helm, crest, and mantling, upon a dull black banner with fringed gold border attached to a writhen gilded staff (fig. 136). Richard Nevill earl of Salisbury (c. 1436) (fig. 137), John earl of Shrewsbury (c. 1453), John lord Tiptoft (c. 1461), and several others have their arms, etc. on plain gold-coloured fringed banners, but Richard lord Rivers (c. 1450), Thomas lord Stanley (c. 1459), and George duke of Clarence (c. 1461) have the field worked all over with decorative scroll-work. Sir John Grey of Ruthin (c. 1439) also displays his arms on an undoubted banner with black ground and gold fringe and staff (fig. 138), and William lord Fauconberg (c. 1440) on a banner with the field bendy of blue and silver, with a gold fringe and staff. It is not improbable that several other quadrangular stall-plates with coloured grounds represent banners. Edmund of Langley duke of York has the field paly of three pieces of silver, green, and black; John duke of Bedford (1422-3) has a ground party blue and silver, and Thomas duke of Exeter (c. 1422) a ground all black. John duke of Somerset (c. 1440) has the field of his plate bendy of silver, red, and green, with a gilded border of scrolled leaves; and Walter lord Mountjoy (c. 1472) disposes the same three colours in vertical stripes.

Two similar displays of heraldic achievements are to be found in a manuscript at the Heralds' College.[12] In one of these the arms, etc. of Sir Richard Nanfant (ob. 1506-7) are painted upon a quadrangular field party of blue and green. In the other the impaled shield of Sir Richard and his dame, upheld by an angel, is painted upon a ground having the upper three-fourths red and the fourth part pale pink.[13]

In modern practice there is no conceivable reason why banners for the display of arms should not be more widely adopted; not only as banners proper, to fly upon a staff, but in decorative art, such as painting, sculpture, and embroidery. Both the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries regularly notify their existence in Burlington House by displaying banners of their arms over their apartments, and their example is one that might be followed by other corporations entitled to bear arms. On the use of banners by individuals it is unnecessary to enter after the useful series of examples and usages thereof already noted.

The curious flags known as standards, which were in use during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, seem to have been borne simply for display in pageants or at funerals. For decorative purposes they are most effective, and as they were anciently borne by men of every degree down to and including esquires, they might with much advantage from the artistic standpoint again be devised and brought into use.

A standard (fig. 139) was a long narrow flag with the lower edge horizontal, and the upper gradually descending from the staff to the extremity, which was split into two rounded ends. A compartment next the staff always contained the arms of St. George. The rest of the ground not infrequently was formed of two, three, or four horizontal stripes of the livery colours of the owner, and divided into three sections by two slanting bands with his word, reason, or motto. Upon the section next to the St. George's cross was generally displayed the principal beast or other device of the bearer and in later times the crest on a torse, while the other sections and the field in general were powdered with badges or rebuses. The whole was fringed of the livery colours.

Pennons were small and narrow flags of varying length, sometimes pointed, sometimes swallow-tailed at the end, fixed below the point of a lance or spear and carried by the owner as his personal ensign (fig. 140). That held by Sir John d'Abernoun in his well-known brass (c. 1277) at Stoke d'Abernoun is short and pointed and fringed, and bears his arms (azure a cheveron gold). A contemporary illustration of a large and more fluttering form of pennon is to be seen in fig. 141. An example of a pennon charged with a badge, in the shape of the Percy crescent, occurs on the seal of Henry[Pg 237]
[Pg 238] Percy earl of Northumberland, who is shown with it in his hand (pl. XXIX A).

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was not unusual to set up on gables, pinnacles, and other high places figures of animals holding banners as vanes or ornaments. Heraldic beasts as finials began to be used even in the thirteenth century, and an example so early as 1237 is noted on the Pipe Roll of 22 Henry III, when a charge occurs 'for making and setting up a certain lion of stone upon the gable of the King's hall'[14] within the castle of Windsor. Examples of the fourteenth century are hard to find, but in the fifteenth century and first half of the sixteenth they are common enough. In most of these later examples the creatures sit up and support shields with arms or badges; some, like the fine groups at Mapperton in Dorset, once held vanes as well.

Early vanes from their tendency to decay are rare. In 1352-3 14s. were spent 'upon a vane of copper painted with the king's arms, bought to be put upon the top of the hall of the king's college'[15] in Windsor castle; and a delightful example, also of copper, pierced with the arms of Sir William Etchingham, its builder (ob. 1389), still surmounts the steeple of Etchingham church in Sussex (fig. 142). A simple specimen of an iron vane may yet be seen on Cowdray House in the same county. The octagonal steeple of Fotheringay church, Northants, built at the cost of Richard duke of York c. 1435, is surmounted by a fine representation in copper of his badge, the falcon within a fetterlock.

The employment of a creature to hold up a banner of arms was already no novelty in the fifteenth century, and examples have been noted above of those on the tomb of Lewis lord Bourchier (ob. 1431) and on the seal of Margaret lady Hungerford (c. 1460); to which may be added the banner-bearing lion on the seal (c. 1442) of Henry Percy, eldest son of Henry second earl of Northumberland. The conversion therefore of the sitting beast into a vane-holder came about quite naturally. A good instance of the end of the fifteenth century forms a charming finial to the well-[Pg 240]
[Pg 241]known kitchen at Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, but the griffin which sits aloft there has, alas, no longer a vane to hold (fig. 143).

Quite an array of such vane-holders was set up early in the sixteenth century upon the pinnacles of the nave clerestory of St. George's chapel in Windsor castle, and the contract made in 1506 for completing the quire in like fashion provides for 'as well the vautte within furth as archebotens, crestys, corses, and the King's bestes stondyng on theym to bere the fanes on the outside of the said quere, and the creasts, corses (and) beasts above on the outsides of Maister John Shornes Chappell.' The contract made in 1511 for finishing the adjacent Lady chapel also includes 'making up crests, corses, and the King's bestes stondyng on theym to bere furth squychons with armes.' These beasts holding their glittering vanes seem to have been completed only so far as the great chapel was concerned, and are plainly shown in Hollar's engraving of the building; but they were all taken down in 1682 by the advice of Sir Christopher Wren, who suggested that pineapples be set up in their stead!

Another mention of figures with vanes occurs in the contract made in 1546 for the building of the Coventry cross:

These beasts, fowls, and boys obviously performed a double duty, like the creatures on Mapperton manor-house.

The exact nature of the 'King's bestes' at Windsor and elsewhere is illustrated by the accounts for the building of the great hall of Hampton Court in 1533-4. These include payments 'for the workyng and makyng of a lyon and a dragon in stone, standyng at the Gabull ends of the said hall'; 'for two pynnys of irne for stayes for the two bests of freston, standyng at the gabyll endes of the haull'; and 'for gylding and payntyng of two vanys, servyng the bests of freston stondyng at the endes uppon the haull, oon of the Kynges armys, the other of the Quenys, wrowghte wyth fyne golde and in owyle.' Further payments are 'for makyng of 29 of the Kynges bestes to stand upon the new batilments of the Kynges New Hall, and uppon the femerell of the said Hall' and 'for 16 vanys for the bestes standyng upon the battylment of the hall.' Also 'for the payntyng of 6 great lyons, standyng abowght the bartyllment, of tymber worke, uppon the Kynges New Hall, theyre vaynys gylte with fyne golde and in oyle,' and for the painting 'of 4 great dragons & of 6 grewhounds servyng the same barttylment.'

There are also payments to a 'Karver, for karvyng and coutting of 2 grewhondes, oon lybert, servyng to stande uppon the typpis of the vycys abowght the Kynges new haull,' and to a 'paynter, for gyldyng and payntyng of 2 grewhondes, oon lybert, syttyng upon basys baryng vanys, uppon the typys at the haull endes'; likewise 'for gyldyng and payntyng of 24 vanys with the Kynges armes and the Quenes badges.'[17]

The free use of external colouring should be noted.

The use of the King's beasts as heraldic adjuncts was not confined at Hampton Court to the building only, but they were made to do duty, in an equally delightful manner, as garden decorations. Thus the payments already quoted include charges

for makyng and entaylling of 38 of the Kynges and the quenys Beestes, in freeston, barying shyldes wythe the Kynges armes and the Quenys; that ys to say, fowre dragownes, seyx lyones, fyve grewhoundes, fyve harttes, foure Innycornes, servyng to stand abowght the ponddes in the pond yerd;

for cuttyng and intayling of a lyon and grey-hound in freestoon, that is to say, the lyon barying a vane with the Kynges armes, &c. servyng to stand uppon the bases of freeston abought the ponds;

for pynnes servyng the pyllers of freestoon that the beastes standyth uppon abowght the ponds in the pond yerd;

for payntyng of 30 stoon bests standyng uppon bases abowght the pondes in the pond yerd, for workmanship, oyle, and collers. Also

for payntyng off 180 postes wyth white and grene[18] and in oyle ... standyng in the Kynges new garden;

also for lyke payntyng of 96 powncheones wyth white and grene, and in oyle, wrought wyth fyne antyke uppon both the sydes beryng up the rayles in the sayd Garden;

also for lyke payntyng of 960 yerdes in leyngthe of Rayle.[19]