Chapter XVII: The Jack and Parliamentary Union in Britain

The history of the flag, so far as we now have followed it, has been the story of martial or naval prowess and of the extension of its power and command around the world; but there is another story told in its combinations which is even greater in power, and has still deeper meaning in the welfare of the peoples who have come beneath its sway.

The kingdom of England for centuries had its own St. George's Jack, and the kingdom of Scotland its cross of St. Andrew. These red and white crosses had been the accepted symbols of their respective nationalities. Each of the kingdoms had its own separate Parliament, differing, it is true, from that of the other in methods and in many details, but representing the constitutional machinery adopted in each community for consultation between the King and his subjects, who, through their representatives, were advised upon matters connected with the government of their country, whether in its internal laws or in its relations with foreign powers. In course of time the same sovereign, in the person of James I., had by virtue of his birth succeeded to the throne of England, as well as to that of Scotland. The kingly office in both the kingdoms had thus been merged in the person of one and the same King. A new flag had been created representing the allegiance which had then been joined in the one sovereign. In this the crosses of the two kingdoms had been joined together in one design, but the separate national Jacks of each had been still retained and their use continued in force.

These separate national Jacks were certainly intended to evidence the continued separate national existence of each kingdom, while the new personal Jack or banner of the King would appear to have evidenced the union of the thrones in one person, and to represent the united fealty offered to the one King. Yet it is fairly open to question whether this Union Jack of James I. was at first created to mean as much as this, or whether it was not, after all, introduced more for the purpose of avoiding trouble between the sailors of the two nations, and only intended at first to be a local convenience for the preventing of dissensions.

The new Union Jack certainly did not represent a union of the nations, else why did the two national Jacks still remain? If it had been intended to represent the fealty of his subjects to their King, why was it not introduced immediately upon his accession, and why was not the red cross of the Irish included as well as the crosses of the English and Scots, for the Irish were equally at the time subjects of James I.?

The Irish had, in fact, been subjects of his predecessors for many centuries. In 1171, after the conquest of the island had been effected by Henry II. of England, the native princes of Ireland had declared fealty to the prince--not in his capacity as king, but in acknowledgment of his position as having become by conquest the "Lord of Ireland." The country had from very early days been governed by its own Parliaments, whose meetings are recorded as having taken place as early as 1295; but it was not until 1522 that Ireland was raised to the rank and designation of a kingdom. In this year an Act was passed by the Parliament of Ireland declaring Henry VIII., the King of England, to be also the King of Ireland, and it was by virtue of this Act that the King of England first assumed the additional title of King of Ireland. The flag of England was at this same time the single St. George Jack; yet, although the crowns were thus formally united, the cross of St. Patrick was not added to the red cross of St. George as a Union Jack in sign of fealty to the one sovereign.

After this, the Kingdom of Ireland owned fealty to three more sovereigns of England in succession;[116] yet under none of them were the crosses of the two national flags joined together. It was not until a Scotch king, the great-grandson of Henry VIII., became King of England, that any of the three national crosses were combined. In 1603, James I. became King of Ireland and England, as well as of Scotland; yet notwithstanding that the three sister kingdoms were thus united in allegiance under his united crown, the three separate crosses of the national Jacks of each were not united in one flag. James I. on his accession had at once added the Irish harp to the quarterings of his Royal Standard (15), but three more years passed before he entered the red cross of St. George in the "additional" two-crossed Union Jack which he then created. All these incidents point, evidently, to the view that the union of the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew in the new flag of 1606 did not arise as an emblem of the union of thrones, but was mainly devised, as the King's proclamation distinctly stated, for the special and local purpose of keeping the sailors of the two nations most interested in shipping at peace, and thus to prevent their crews from quarrelling with one another as they sailed their ships around the shores of Great Britain.

[116] Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth.

It required, in fact, something more than a mere union of allegiance to create a real Union Jack, and to entitle the national crosses of the kingdoms to be entered upon its folds; and what this requirement was the history of the entry of the St. Patrick cross into the Union flag enables us to see even yet more clearly.

It will be remembered that a change in the "additional" Jack of James was made in the sixth year of the reign of Queen Anne, and that the occasion of this change was coincident with the union of the separate Parliaments of England and Scotland into one British Parliament.

It was so soon as this occurred, but not until then, that the flag in which the two national crosses were blended was made the sole national ensign.

It was in 1707 that this first Union Jack was created. Queen Anne was at the time Queen of Ireland as well as Queen of England and Scotland. She had quartered the harp of Ireland in her Royal Standard five years previously, at the time when she had commenced her reign; yet the Queen, when forming the new flag, did not join the cross of St. Patrick in her Union Jack any more than had King James when forming his.

For ninety-four years longer the red cross Irish Jack continued in its separate existence. The reign of Queen Anne had come to its close; three more sovereigns[117] in succession had ascended the united throne of Great Britain and Ireland, and successive changes had been made in the emblazonings on the Royal Standard, yet in all these reigns the Union Jack, which had been declared to be the only flag of the realm to be worn by their subjects, and which was raised over the new dependencies which the united valour of all three nationalities won for the crown, contained only the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, representing but two of the kingdoms included under its rule (44).

[117] George I., George II., George III.

At last, in 1801, during the forty-first year of the reign of George III., the Irish Parliament was united with the Union Parliament of England and Scotland, and then, and not till then, was the red cross of St. Patrick blended with the other two national crosses.

The emblem of Scotland had not been blended with that of England in one Union Jack until their Parliaments had been united; so the emblem of Ireland was not added to the other two until her Parliament had also been joined with theirs. So soon, then, as the three kingdoms were joined in union under one Parliament, for the first time the three crosses of the three national Jacks were united in one three-crossed Union Jack.

(From an old print.)]

We thus have learned what was the necessary qualification to entitle a national cross to be entered in the union ensign.

It needed a union of Parliaments to create a real Union Jack--a flag in which the national crosses should each continue to retain their national significance, and, when joined together in union, be still accorded the same precedence which had previously attached to each when separately displayed.

The history of these successive blendings shows most plainly that the triune flag arose, not from union under one sovereign, but from legislative union under one Parliament. The Union Jack, therefore, has become the emblem of the British Constitution and the British race. It is now the signal of loyalty to one Sovereign and the existence of Government under British parliamentary union, and, therefore, wherever displayed, it indicates the presence of British liberties and British law.