consisted of banners blazoned with the arms of the individual, and the families with which he was allied. On some occasions ecclesiastical banners were displayed. In 1388, John Lord Montecute, a brother of the Earl of Salisbury, ordered in his will that no painting should be placed about his hearse, excepting one banner of the arms of England, two charged with that of Montecute, and two with the arms of Monthermer. In the fourteenth century, those who were descended from or connected by marriage with the royal family used the royal arms with their own. Isabel, Countess of Suffolk, 1416, and the Earl of Huntington, 1380, forbade any banners to be borne at their funerals; but Richard, Earl of Salisbury, 1458, ordered at his interment "there be banners, standards, and other accoutrements, according as was usual to a person of his degree." At the exposing of the body of Richard II. in St. Paul's Cathedral, 1400, four banners were affixed to the carriage or bier supporting it, two of which contained the arms of St. George, and the other two the arms of Edward the Confessor. In 1542, Sir Gilbert Talbot, of Grafton, desired four banners should be carried at his funeral, one of the Trinity, one of the Annunciation of Our Lady, one of St. John the Evangelist, and one of St. Anthony. Sir David Owen, who died the same year, ordered by his will, 1529, his body should be buried after the degree of banneret; that is, with his helmet, sword, coat armor, banner, standard, and pendant, and set over all a banner of the Holy Trinity, one of Our Lady, and another of St. George, borne after the order of a man of his degree; and the same should be placed over his tomb in the priory of Essebourne.

The BANNER, blazoned with all the quarterings of him to whom it belonged, was either attached to a staff or lance, or frequently depended from a trumpet, a custom which is still retained by the trumpeters of the Household Brigade.

We read in Shakspeare,

"I will a banner from a trumpet take, and use it for my haste;"

and in Chaucer,

"On every trump hanging a brode bannere

Of fine tartarium full richly bete,

Every trumpet his lordis armes bere."

The flags carried by cavalry regiments, though usually called 'standards,' might properly be styled 'banners.' The term 'colors' is applied to the flags of foot regiments. Shakspeare uses colors to denote military flags.

During the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, and even later, care was observed that the proper banners should be carried at the funerals of persons of rank.

The BANDEROLE, BANNEROL, or BANDROLL was a small banner about a yard square, generally but not always rounded at the fly, several of which were carried at funerals. They displayed the arms and the matches of the deceased's ancestors, especially of those which brought honor or estate into the family. These arms filled the entire flag, which was generally fringed with the principal metal and color of the arms of the deceased. The bannerol which was placed at the head of Cromwell, at his magnificent funeral, exhibited his arms, viz., sable; a lion rampant argent; impaling Stuart or; on a fess cheeky argent and azure; an escutcheon argent debruised with a bend fretty. Funeral Enfignsoffener belonging to his late Serve Higher. At his funeral there

Oliver Cromwell's Bannerol

were also displayed

four standards, eight

great banners, and

twelve bannerols, with a guydon, of which we give a reduced fac-simile from Prestwick's' Res Republicæ.' These standards exhibit the shape and design of the standards of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales at the period of the great Protector's death, and also the banners of the 'Union or States,' 'St. George,' 'St. Andrew,' 'King David,' and of the Commonwealth, the ban

ner of Cromwell and his guydon, and the bannerols of the families with which he was allied.

It appears by the bill rendered for the funeral expenses that the six great banners cost £6 each, and the five large standards, “wrought in rich taffety, in oyle, and guilt with fine gold and silver," cost £10 each; the guydon, "as large as a great banner," £6; and the twelve bannerols, £30.

At the Restoration, Cromwell's body and the bodies of his associates were dug up, suspended on Tyburn gallows for a day, and then buried under it. The head of Cromwell was taken off, carried to Westminster Hall, and fixed there, where it remained until the great tempest at the commencement of the eighteenth century, which blew it down, when it was picked up by the great-grandfather of its present possessor, a citizen of London, a significant commentary on earthly greatness. "The body of Cromwell, carried to his burial in royal state, only a few years after his interment is rudely torn from its last resting-place, and the half-decayed carcass, dragged by the heels through the mud and mire of London, is hanged upon Tyburn tree, the head afterwards torn off and placed so that, in grinning horror, it ever looked towards the spot where King Charles was executed." 1

The GUYDON, or GUIDON, Fr. (derived from guide-homme), resembled a banner in form and emblazonment, but was one-third less in size, and had the end rounded off. It was the standard of a company of soldiers, and borne by their cornet.

"The guydhome must be two yards and a half or three yards longe, and therein shall no armes be putt, but only the mans crest, cognizance & devyce, and from that, from his standard and streamer, a man may flee, but not from his banner or pennon bearinge his armes."

"Place under the guidhome fifty men, by the conduct of an esquire or gentleman.” 2

Every guydon carried, in chief, a cross of St. George.

The PENNON (Fr.), sometimes spelled Pinione, was a small streamer half the size of the guydon, of a swallow-tailed form, attached to the handle of a spear or lance, such as the lancers of the present day carry. Afterwards, by increase in length and breadth, it became a military ensign, and was charged with the crest, badge, or war-cry of the 1 Anonymous; Prestwick.

Pennon.

2 MS. British Museum.

knight, — his arms being emblazoned on his banner, so arranged as to appear correctly when the lance was held in a horizontal position. The pennon charged with a cross is borne by St. George, St. Michael, and St. Ursula ; that of John the Baptist is inscribed with his words announcing the coming of Christ: "Ecce Agnus Dei." The illustration, a pennon of the earliest form, is copied from one held by the figure of Sir John Daubernoun, 1277, on his monumental brass in the church of Stoke D'Aubernoun, Surrey.

Daubernonn's Pennon, 1277.

A manuscript, giving the size of banners, &c., in the fifteenth century, says: "Every knight may have his pennon, if he be chiefe captaine, and in it sett his armes; and if he be made a banneret by the king or the lieutenant, shall make a slitte in the end of the pennon, and the heraldes shall raze it oute: and when a knight is made a banneret the heralds shall bringe him to his tente, and receive for their fees, three pounds, eleven shillings and four pence for every bachelor knight, and the trumpetter twenty shillings."

In Canterbury Tales,' Chaucer's knight says:

"And by hys bannere borne is his pennon

Of gold full riche."

Sir Walter Scott thus alludes to the pennon in 'Marmion :'

Pavon.

"The trustiest of the four,

On high his forky pennon bore:

Like swallow's tail in shape and hue,
Fluttered the streamer, glossy blue,

Where blazoned sable, as before,

The towering falcon seemed to soar."

The PAVON was a peculiar-shaped flag, somewhat like a gryon attached to a spear. The cut is from an illuminated Psalter executed in 1340. The original is charged with the arms of Sir Geoffrey Loutterell: azure; a bend between six martlets argent.

PENONCELS, OR PENSILS, were small narrow pennons, usually borne to ensign the helmet, or to form part of the caparisons of the knight's charger, though they were sometimes affixed to lances, as appears from a line of the Lyfe of Alesaunder,' a metrical romance of the fourteenth century,

"Many a fair pencel on spere."

ENSIGN (Wal. insigna; Span. ensena; Lat. insigne; Fr. ensigne; also in English, antient or ancient), applied first to the flag, is now applied both to the flag and its bearer. In 'Othello,' Cassio, in speaking of Iago, says, "The lieutenant is to be saved before the ancient." Edward the Black Prince commanded his 'ancient' bearer, Sir Walter Woodland, to march forward.1 King Richard took with him on his crusade the standard and ensigns of his kingdom. Of late years, the national flags borne by vessels of war or merchant ships have been known as ensigns, and a grade of junior officers has been introduced into the United States navy, who are styled 'ensigns,' though their duties necessarily have no connection with the colors. The French also have a class of officers in their navy styled ensigns de vaisseaux.1

Winthrop, in his 'History of New England,' mentions, under date Saturday, May 22, 1634, his meeting, on his passage across the Atlantic, a small French vessel, and "when we drew near her, we put forth our 'ancient,' and she luffed up the wind to us."

That celebrated piece of royal embroidery, the Bayeux tapestry, the handiwork of Matilda, the consort of William the Conqueror, and her ladies, exhibits a display of the military ensigns in use at the period of the conquest by the Norman invaders and the Saxon occupants of England. The examples I have given from it afford an idea of the shape and devices of the ensigns of the chieftains of the eleventh century.2

The Bayeux tapestry, divided into compartments showing the events from Harold's visit to the Norman court to his death at Hastings, is preserved in the public library at Bayeux, near Caen, Normandy. Only within a few years has it been where it could be seen with comfort or ability to appreciate its merits, having formerly been kept on a huge cylinder, from which an official unrolled seventy-two yards on to another cylinder. In this way it was carried through France in 1803, by order of Bonaparte, to be displayed from the stages of the theatres as an incentive to the public mind not to revive this kind of work, but to awaken the people to a project then on foot for the invasion of England. Now this grand work is shown on the walls of the town library, it consisting of a strip of linen cloth. 218 feet long, and 1 foot 8 inches wide, having worked upon its entire length a series of fifty-eight scenes, representing the events in the 'Norman Conquests,' in which there are more than ten thousand figures, many of them being men who are 10 to 12 inches high; then there are horses, dogs, ships, and houses, and a running border 1 Boutell's Heraldry.

2 Stow.