History of the Union Jack and Flags of the Empire. Barlow Cumberland

      12. St. Andrew's Jack.

      The "Scottish Jack" (Pl I., fig. 2) is a white oblong cross upon a blue ground. This is the banner of St. Andrew (12), and in heraldic language is described as "Azure, a saltire argent" (on azure blue, a silver-white saltire).

      How St. Andrew came to be adopted as the patron saint of Scotland is a subject of much varying conjecture. It is said that in the early centuries, about A.D. 370, some relics of the apostle St. Andrew were being brought to Scotland by some Greek monks, and although the vessel carrying them was wrecked and became a total loss, the sacred bones were brought safe to shore at the port in the County of Fife, still called St. Andrews, where a church was erected to his memory.

      The most favoured tradition as to the date of his authorized adoption as a patron saint is that it occurred in A.D. 987, when Hungus, king of the Picts, was being attacked by Athelstane, the king of the West Saxons,[37] Achaius, king of the Scots, with 10,000 of his Scottish subjects, came to the relief of Hungus, and the two kings joined their forces to repel the Southern invaders. The Scottish leaders, face to face with so formidable a foe, were passing the night in prayer to God and St. Andrew, when upon the background of the blue sky there appeared, formed in white clouds, the figure of the white cross of the martyr saint. Reanimated by this answering sign, the Scottish soldiers entered the fray with enthusiastic valour, and beset the English with such ardour as to drive them in confusion from the field, leaving their king, Athelstane, behind them dead among the slain. Since that time the white saltire cross, upon a blue ground, the banner of St. Andrew, has been carried by the Scots as their national ensign.

      This was the flag carried by the great Scottish national hero, Robert-the-Bruce, whose valour won for him the crown of Scotland, and whose descendants, the earls of Elgin, still bear his banner on their coatof-arms. At Bannockburn, in 1314, this emblem of Bruce rose victorious over Edward II. and his stolid Englishmen. Its use was continued in 1385, when the Scots, stirred up and aided by Charles VI. of France, invaded and despoiled the border counties of England, in which expeditions both they and their French auxiliaries wore a white St. Andrew's cross upon their jacques, both before and behind, in order that they might distinguish the soldiers of their combined companies from the forces of the foe.[38]

      But St. Andrew's flag was not always victorious. At Chevy Chase and Flodden Field it suffered defeat, but only in such wise as to prove the truth of the warning motto of the prickly Scotch thistle, "Nemo me impune lacessit"—(No one may touch me with impunity).

      The Scottish Jack in all these early centuries, unlike its English compeer, does not appear to have been carried by Scotsmen far afield, nor in expeditions across the seas. On land, the Scots used it mainly as a sign of recognition during the forays which they kept up with unceasing vigour on the neighbouring kingdoms of England and Ireland; and at sea its scene of action was kept measurably near to their own shores.

Scotland, being so far removed from the fleets of the southern nations of Europe, did not need a regular navy, and never had one of any size,[39] but her far northern coasts, indented with deep bays and bordered by wild fastnesses, adapted themselves admirably to the use to which they were mainly put, of being the lair from which hardy, venturesome freebooters, in those times called "sea rovers," sailed forth in their "talle shippes" (13), and pounced down upon the vessels of the passersby. The exploits of some of these sailors, under the St. Andrew's Jack, crop out from time to time with splendid audacity in the history of the centuries. One "Mercer, a Scottish rover," during the reign of Richard II. of England, so harried the merchant shipping of England that, in 1378, Alderman John Philpot, "a worshipful citizen of London," equipped an expedition at his own expense to cramp the energies of the marauder, and meeting Mercer and fifteen Spanish ships, which were acting with him, brought the whole fleet, "besides great riches which were found on board," in triumph into port at Scarborough in Yorkshire. Philpot was haled before the English royal authorities for having dared "to set forth a navy of men-of-war without the advice of the King's Council," but the end was considered to have justified the means, and the bold citizen, who by his own action had put down the annoyance with which the officers of the realm should have dealt, was, after having himself stoutly berated the Council for their sluggishness, let go free.