THE UNION OF THE SCOTTISH AND ENGLISH CROWNS AND THE SYMBOL OF A BRITISH IDENTITY
Preliminary designs for the Union flag are depicted in the second plate section.
King James VI of Scotland also became James I of England when he succeeded the childless Queen Elizabeth in 1603. He wished, however, to consider himself not just the single head of state of two otherwise separate kingdoms but rather as the ruler of a united entity, as ‘King of Great Britain’.
In October 1607, James assured the Westminster Parliament that ‘the benefits which do arise of that union which is made in my blood do redound to the whole island’. In this he was ahead of his time. Although the accompanying union treaty that he envisaged was passed by the Scottish Parliament, it got bogged down in Westminster and was clearly unlikely to be enacted in a form acceptable to His Majesty.
Yet the previous year the two realms had been given a unified emblem. In the succeeding centuries it was unfurled wherever Britons went: circumnavigating the globe with the world’s largest navy; flying from barracks, schools, missions and embassies in the four corners of the earth; forming a rallying point for bloodied soldiers upon countless battlefields; rising with each Olympic gold medal won and falling with each colony set free. So far and wide did it journey that it was even the first man-made item to flutter from the world’s highest mountain. This was the Union flag – more commonly referred to as the Union Jack – and it became inseparably entwined with the notion of Britishness.
It was brought into being by a royal proclamation of April 1606, ‘declaring what Flags South and North Britains shall bear at Sea’, which stipulated that all ships henceforth ‘shall bear in their maintop the Red Cross, commonly called St George’s Cross, and the White Cross, commonly called St Andrew’s Cross, joined together, according to a form made by our Heralds and sent by Us to our Admiral to be published to our said Subjects’.
The design of the new flag, intended only for maritime use, was entrusted to the earl of Nottingham. The brief was to combine the crosses of Scotland and England’s respective saints, St Andrew and St George. A traditional approach was to halve or quarter the flag between the two devices, but the problem was that whichever cross appeared nearer to the flagstaff, or on the top quarter, would be construed to enjoy a hierarchical precedence. Avoiding giving national offence was as important as coming up with an intelligible design.
Since 1604, Nottingham had toyed with various ideas, none of them satisfactory. These versions have survived although, sadly, not the original successful design, which was probably lost in a fire at Whitehall palace in 1618. Nonetheless, the solution was ingenious: the English cross would lie on top of the Scottish cross, but a section of the Scottish cross alone would appear in the canton – the top, left-hand quarter of the flag, which the laws of heraldry decreed was the most prestigious position.
It immediately became clear that this did not mollify the Scots. On 7 August 1606, the shipmasters of Scotland wrote to the king, protesting at the fact that ‘the Scottis Croce, callit Sanctandrois Croce is twyse divydit, and the Inglishe Croce, callit Sanct George, haldin haill and drawne through the Scottis Croce, whiche is thairby obscurit and no takin nor merk to be seene of the Scottish Armes. This will breid some heit and discontentment betwixt your Majesteis subjectis.’
These gripes led to two versions of the Union flag. English ships flew it with the English cross imposed over the Scottish saltire (diagonal cross) while Scottish ships flew it with the Scottish saltire imposed over the English cross. After the 1707 Act of Union, the Scottish version became less evident and was abandoned altogether during the nineteenth century.
In the seventeenth century, officials busied themselves with controlling rather than promoting the Union flag’s use. In 1634, instructions were issued that restricted flying the Union flag to ships of the Royal Navy. Henceforth, merchant ships were commanded to fly the St Andrew’s cross if they were Scottish and the St George’s cross if they were English, the latter being the first to be subsequently incorporated into the top canton of the red ensign. For warships, the Union flag was briefly abandoned with the execution of Charles I. The republican Commonwealth toyed with various versions before the previous design was reinstated for the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.
With the reign of Queen Anne and full legislative union, the Union flag’s usage spread. During this period, the blue appears to have been somewhat lighter in hue than it subsequently became. The current version of the flag was first flown in 1801 to symbolize the Act of Union with Ireland and introduced the Irish diagonal red cross of St Patrick into the design, running it within the St Andrew’s cross. In order not to obliterate the Scottish saltire, the Irish saltire was made less thick and was also ‘counter-changed’ – reversed in each half so that it is lower on the half nearer the flagpole (thereby ceding hierarchical priority to Scotland) but higher on the half more distant from the pole. This was another means of smoothing national sensibilities by ensuring that the precedence given to the Irish saltire – because it lay over the Scottish saltire – was balanced by the Scottish saltire having precedence in the more prestigious half of the design. It also allowed the flag to be flown upside down as a means of signalling distress.
By this time, the flag was ceasing to be purely a device flown by warships and regiments. During Queen Victoria’s reign, it became ubiquitous. Occasionally, pedants attempted to assert that civilians had no right to fly it – until officialdom assured them otherwise. There also remained the debate over its name. Technically it was only the ‘Union Jack’ when flown from the jackstaff of a Royal Navy ship, which explains the origin of the name. The distinction has, however, long been a redundant one, as conceded by an Admiralty circular from 1902. Asked to settle definitively the matter of the flag’s name during a House of Lords debate in 1908, the earl of Crewe announced the government’s position on the subject, stating that ‘the Union Jack should be regarded as the national flag, and may be flown on land by all His Majesty’s subjects’.
