Flag of England

Origins

On 21 January 1188, Henry II of England and Philip II of France agreed to go on a crusade, and that Henry would use a white cross and Philip a red cross.

There then follows a historiographical tradition claiming that Richard the Lionheart himself adopted the full red cross flag and the patron saint from the Republic of Genoa at some point during his crusade. This idea can be traced to the Victorian era, Perrin (1922) refers to it as a "common belief", and it is still popularly repeated today even though it cannot be substantiated. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent made a variation to this in a bilingual preface to a brochure made for the British Pavilion at Genoa Expo '92. The relevant passage read:

The St. George's flag, a red cross on a white field, was adopted by England and the City of London in 1190 for their ships entering the Mediterranean to benefit from the protection of the Genoese fleet. The English Monarch paid an annual tribute to the Doge of Genoa for this privilege

Red crosses seem to have been used as a distinguishing mark worn by English soldiers from the reign of Edward I (1270s), or perhaps slightly earlier, in the Battle of Evesham of 1265, using a red cross on their uniforms to distinguish themselves from the white crosses used by the rebel barons at the Battle of Lewes a year earlier. Perrin notes a roll of accounts from 1277 where the purchase of cloth for the king's tailor is identified as destined for the manufacture of a large number of pennoncels (pennons attached to lances) and bracers (worn by archers on their left forearms) "of the arms of Saint George" for the use by the king's foot soldiers (pro peditibus regis). Perrin concludes from this that the introduction of the Cross of St George as a "national emblem" is originally due to Edward I. By 1300, there was also a greater "banner of Saint George", but not yet in a prominent function; the king used it among especially banners of king-saints Saint Edward the Confessor and Saint Edmund the Martyr alongside the royal banner. George had become popular as a "warrior saint" during the Crusades, but the saint most closely associated with England was Edward the Confessor. This was so until the time of Edward III, who in thanks for Saint George's supposed intervention in his favour at the Battle of Crécy gave him a special position as a patron saint of the inceptive Order of the Garter in 1348. From that time, his banner was used with increasing prominence alongside the Royal Banner and became a fixed element in the hoist of the Royal Standard. Yet the flag shown for England in the Book of All Kingdoms of 1367 is solid red (while Saint George's Cross is shown for Nice and, in a five-cross version, for Tbilisi). The Wilton Diptych from the late 1390s shows a swallow-tailed Saint George cross pennant held by an angel in between (the then reigning) King Richard II (accompanied by Edward the Confessor and Edmund the Martyr) and a scene of the Virgin and Child flanked by angels wearing Richard's own heraldic devices.

Saint George's Day was considered a "double major feast" from 1415, but George was still eclipsed by his "rivals" Saints Edward and Edmund.

John Cabot, commissioned by Henry VII to sail "under our banners, flags and ensigns", may have taken a Saint George's banner to Newfoundland in 1497.

That Saint George is the primary patron saint of England is among several lasting changes of height of the English Protestant Reformation, via the content which the teenage king and his Protestant advisors issued to all churches and clerics. These rules were the revised prayer book of 1552. Just as with the Marian persecutions (four years of counter-revolution after his natural death) all defecting clerics faced likely deprivation which was the loss of their office and if more broadly heretical, burning at the stake. The book made clear all religious flags, including saints' banners except for Saint George were abolished.

Further use of this cross as a maritime flag alongside royal banners, is found in 1545.

Henry V, the history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written near 1599 includes the fictitious scene of the siege of Harfleur where the king's final rally is:

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!"
[Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off.]

thus promoting the notion that the cult or festivities specifically to the saint, or focus on the Order of the Garter put him significantly ahead of two other national saints – instead of depicting that they were approximately equal. The quote became rapidly well known in London, across social classes, and thus imagery entrenched that Saint George was "historically" the primary saint.

In 1606, after the Union of the Crowns in 1603, it was combined with the Scottish St Andrew's Cross to form the Union Jack, which James VI & I ordered be flown from the main tops of ships from both England and Scotland. The "Red Crosse" continued to be flown from the fore-top by James' subjects in "South Britaine"—i.e., the Saint George cross was used with the new union flag on English vessels.

In the 19th century, it became desirable for all nations of Europe (and later worldwide) to identify a national flag. During that time, the terms Britain and England were used largely interchangeably, the Union Flag was used as national flag de facto, even though never officially adopted. The observation that the Cross of St George is the "national flag of England" (as opposed to the Union Flag being the flag of all of the United Kingdom) was made in the context of Irish irredentism, as noted by G. K. Chesterton in 1933:

As a very sensible Irishman said in a letter to a Dublin paper: "The Union Jack is not the national flag of England." The national flag of England is the Cross of St. George; and that, oddly enough, was splashed from one end of Dublin to the other; it was mostly displayed on shield-shaped banners, and may have been regarded by many as merely religious.