Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/442

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436


NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. m. OCT.. 1917.


royal arms as they now stand as sufficiently representative of his own status in all 'that heraldry stands for ? I am sure, if I were a real colonist instead of having spent many years of my life as a legal official in the Colonial service I would decline to ask for any such badge of modern kinship as that suggested by Mr. Bout ell or Mr. Begg. Our national insignia whether English, Scottish, or Irish are of ancient and his- torical significance ; and any alteration on the lines indicated seems to me too much like an advertisement for the Heralds' College.

Further, the suggestion of a " double- headed lion passant guardant " (any double- headed charge, whether of lions or eagles, inclines too pointedly towards Continental regal armory) seems somewhat incongruous for India ; whilst the lion in that form emblematic solely of England may not be acceptable to those very numerous colonists who are of Scottish, Irish, or even of Welsh descent.

If any change is to be made in our national arms, why should not " gallant little Wales " who, I think, has now earned her right to it be taken into full partnership, if the fact of her being only a Principality does not disqualify her for such an advance- ment ?

Some time ago I advocated (9 S. viii. 380) the establishment of a regiment of Welsh Guards to mark the occasion of his late Majesty Edward VII. having exchanged the Principality of Wales for the sovereignty of these realms. That, I am happy to say, has recently become an accomplished fact, and I surmise that the present Welsh Prime Minister was not altogether unassociated with the change. Perhaps Mr. Lloyd George may still find time after the War to give his attention to this more important, but no less deserved, honour for his country- men.

Our national races would all then be equally represented in the royal arms. From these four races practically all our colonists (I do not, of course, include British subjects merely) are descended, and would be entitled by ties of blood as heraldry teaches to share in one common armorial representation of ancestry, each component part being of considerable antiquity.

It might be difficult to make any corre- sponding change in our national flag, or " Union Jack," the changes there having been prompted largely by political con- siderations, and rendered the more easy by the fact that each of the three countries


possessed a cross of its own St. George St. Andrew, and St. Patrick. Wales alone would seem to have no such Order, or cross of her patron saint, St. David.

Difficulty enough has been experienced IE evolving and still more in correctly de- ciphering the "Union Jack "; few persons can, off-hand, give an accurate drawing of it, It is not quite so easy a task as adding a fresh star for each new State as it becomes a member of the American Union. But then ancient heraldry is not so flexible as modern heraldry ! So let the " Union Jack " remain as it is, shared in, and owned by, every member of the British Empire. " Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamui in illis." But, at any rate, let us see to it that those changes are not unnecessary ones. J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.


BARNARD FLOWER, THE KING'S GLAZIER.

THE following notes may be of use to students of glass-painting. Some of the facts which they disclose have not yet found their way into books dealing with that branch of craftsmanship, but are important facts which ought to be more widely known. Barnard Flower is the glazier whose name is associated with what remains of the original glazing in Henry VII. 's Chapel at Westminster, and with some of the lights in King's College Chapel at Cambridge. Con- jecture, in the absence of documentary evidence, has sometimes assigned to him also portions of the church glass at Fairford in Gloucestershire, after scrapping th traditional story that this famous glass wa cargo of a foreign ship captured in war Some writers have seen in the Fairforc glass the glory of our native art, other only features which betrayed to them it alien origin, and one meets with many shade of opinion between these extremes.

1. It has generally been assumed tha Flower was by birth an Englishman ; bu he was in fact a foreigner who settled in this country. In the letters of denization which he received from Henry VIII. o May 6, 1514 (' Letters and Papers te H. VIII.,' vol. L, 1862, p. 798), he is describe as a native of Almaine. By these letter.* patent the king granted

" dilecto servienti nostro Barnardo Flowre i Almania oriundp, quod ipse et heredes sui c corpore suo legitime procreati, in hoc regnonostr Anglic nati, exnunc et imperpetuum sint indigen