The Union Jack

The Story of the British Flag

Nick Groom

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780857899316
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Known the world over as a symbol of the United Kingdom, the Union Jack is an intricate construction based on the crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick. Nick Groom traces its long and fascinating past, from the development of the Royal Standard and seventeenth-century clashes over the precise balance of the English and Scottish elements of the first Union Jack to the modern controversies over the flag as a symbol of empire and its exploitation by ultra-rightwing political groups. The Union Jack is the first history of the icon used by everyone from the royalty to the military, pop stars and celebrities.

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Author’s Note

Preface

Glossary

I Here Be Dragons

II Where is St George?

III The Old Enemies

IV 1606 and All That

V See Albion’s Banners Join . . .

VI An Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman

VII Two World Wars and One World Cup

VIII Conclusion

Appendices

Early Texts of ‘Rule, Britannia’ and ‘God Save the King’

Chronology of English, Scottish, and British Monarchs

Dimensions of the Union Jack

Rules for Hoisting Flags on Government Buildings

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Index

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. ‘A Young Daughter of the Picts’. Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA / The Bridgeman Art Library.

2. Heraldic tattoo borne by British soldier. Roger-Viollet / Rex Features.

3. The Papal banner (Bayeux Tapestry). Mary Evans Picture Library.

4. The dragon standard of the Saxons (Bayeux Tapestry). Mary Evans Picture Library.

5. Tomb plaque of Geoffrey Plantagenet. Musee de Tesse, Le Mans, France / Lauros / Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library.

6. Richard I. The British Library.

7. St George arming Edward III. The Governing Body of Christ Church, Oxford (MS 92, fo.3r).

8. Christ leading a Crusade. The British Library.

9. The Wilton Diptych. The National Gallery, London.

10. The armorial bearings and badges of Henry VI, Richard III, Henry VII, and Edward IV. College of Arms MS. Vincent 152, p.53, and College of Arms MS. Vincent 152, p.54.

11. The Earl of Nottingham’s designs for the first Union Flag. The Trustees of the National Library of Scotland.

12. The Grand Union Flag. Private Collection / Archives Charmet / The Bridgeman Art Library.

13. Funeral escutcheon of Oliver Cromwell. Museum of London, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library.

14. Frontispiece to The Visions of the Reformation. Author’s collection.

15. ‘The Death of General Wolfe’. National Library of Canada, transfer from the Canadian War Memorials, 1921 (Gift of the 2nd Duke of Westminster, Eaton Hall, Cheshire, 1918).

16. ‘The Mary Rose’. Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge.

17. ‘The Fighting Temeraire’. The National Gallery, London.

18. ‘Britain’s Day’ poster. Swim Ink / Corbis.

19. Postcard treating the Union Jack as the flag of British Empire. Rykoff Collection / Corbis

20. Poster for the British Empire Exhibition. Thames & Hudson Ltd. From The English World: History, Character and People, ed. Robert Blake, Thames & Hudson Ltd, London.

21. Africans shake hands. Hulton-Deutsch Collection / Corbis.

22. Sewing for victory. Hulton-Deutsch Collection / Corbis.

23. Women working on the layout of coronation banners. Bettmann / Corbis.

24. The Jam. London Features International

25. Sebastian Coe. Sipa Press / Rex Features

26. Ginger Spice at the Brit Awards. Richard Young / Rex Features.

27. Buckingham Palace provides the screen for a gigantic illuminated Union Jack. Tim Graham / Corbis

28. The Black Watch on Operation Bracken, southern Iraq. Giles Penfound / Handout / Reuters / Corbis.

29. Navy Divers at the Royal Oak. Rex Features.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the ‘Union Jack’ as ‘Originally and properly, a small British union flag flown as the jack of a ship; in later and more general use extended to any size or adaptation of the union flag (even when not used as a jack), and regarded as the national ensign’. Many people object to the term Union Jack being applied to the national ensign, arguing that the distinction between Union Jack and Union Flag should be observed because of the specific use of the Jack flag at sea: it is more accurate to say that it is the flag flown from the jackstaff of a ship. In the late nineteenth century there was an attempt to restrict the use of the term ‘Union Jack’ to such flags flown from the jackstaff of British maritime vessels.

The Union Flag has, however, been known as the Union Jack since the seventeenth century. An Admiralty Circular of 1902 noted that the two names were interchangeable, and Parliament confirmed the terminology by declaring in 1908 that ‘the Union Jack should be regarded as the national flag’. It is therefore unnecessarily pedantic to insist on calling the national ensign the ‘Union Flag’ unless one is distinguishing it from the ‘Union Jack’ flown by the Royal Navy, and this book follows the current everyday usage.

Likewise, for the sake of clarity, names are given in their most familiar form: hence ‘Glendower’ for ‘Glyndŵr’, ‘Godwinson’ for ‘Godwineson’ or ‘Godwinsson’, ‘Stuart’ for ‘Stewart’, and so forth, and Old English forms have been modernized. A glossary of specialist terms can be found after the ‘Preface’ and a chronology of the English, Scottish, and British monarchs is printed at the back of the book.

PREFACE

THE UNION JACK is instantly and universally recognizable: it flies proudly from government buildings, is waved gaily at the Last Night of the Proms, and is draped enthusiastically over the shoulders of victorious British athletes. It is also cheerfully quoted in dozens of contexts – anything from James Bond films to advertisements for cheese, from novelty boxer shorts to punk fashion – and remains synonymous with Great Britain and the ‘Empire on which the sun never set’. But what has the Union Jack really stood for in the past, and what – if anything – does it symbolize today?

Everyone in the British Isles and the former British Empire has their own relationship with the flag – as do many more people throughout the world – and the following account is only one of thousands that could be told. In one sense, the story can be summarized in a single sentence: the Union Jack is made up of the crosses of St George, St Andrew, and St Patrick, respectively the patron saints of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and it was first flown on 1 January 1801, when the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland came into being. And yet a long and turbulent history leads to that moment: for almost two centuries there had already been a flag symbolizing the union between Scotland and England (and its principality Wales), and, even before that first Union Flag was raised in 1606, there are over a thousand years of Union Jack prehistory – a strange menagerie of dragons, lions, and ravens. These were the standards of the Dark Ages: of the armies that fought across the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex, who rallied against the persistent raids of Viking marauders, and who at last fell at the Battle of Hastings to the Norman invaders. Such standards developed into the badges of medieval heraldry – that cryptic science that happily places an armed blue lion ramping in a field of gold against a shower of red hearts – and the laws of heraldry helped to establish both the elements that make up the Union Jack and the ways in which they were put together.

So the Union Jack was conceived on the banners of the ancient Britons and in heraldry, and its birth came under the influence of the cults of certain saints. It was carried across the globe as...