FLAGS

NATIONAL, flags were in use in very early times, being displayed in war by the Egyptians and the Saracens. The Romans marched to battle under the eagle, while the Greck emblem was Athena’s owl. In the Bayeux tapestries may be seen numerous flags carried by_the Norman invaders of Britain. One of the earliest records of an English battie standard is in 1138, when, at the battle of Northallerton, triple flags—those of St. Poteor, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon—were displayed from a mast which was surmounted by a silver pyx and borne on a wheeled car. In 1244 Henry III caused to be made a standard of crimson silk representing a dragon, richly adorned with goid and having eyes of precious stones.