Beverley for carrying throughout one of his campaigns a banner bearing the figure of St. John. St. Wilfred's banner from Ripon, together with this banner of St. John from Beverley, were brought on to the field at Northallerton; the flag of St. Denis was carried in the armies of St. Louis and of Philip le Bel, and the banner of St. Cuthbert of Durham was borrowed by the Earl of Surrey in his expedition against Scotland in the reign of Henry VIII. This banner had the valuable reputation of securing victory to those who fought under it. It was suspended from a horizontal bar below a spear head, and was a yard or so in breadth and a little more than this in depth; the bottom edge had five deep indentations. The banner was of red velvet sumptuously enriched with gold embroidery, and in the centre was a piece of white velvet, half a yard square, having a cross of red velvet upon it. This central portion covered and protected a relic of the saint. The victory of Neville's Cross, October 17th, 1346, was held to be largely

due to the presence of this sacred banner, and the triumph at Flodden was also ascribed to it.

During the prevalence of Roman Catholicism in England, we find that banners of religious type entered largely into the funeral obsequies of persons of distinction: thus at the burial of Arthur, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII., we find a banner of the Trinity, another with the cross and instruments of the Passion depicted upon it; another of the Virgin Mary, and yet another with a representation of St. George. Such banners, as in the present instance, were ordinarily four in number, and carried immediately round the body at the four corners of the bier. Thus we read in the diary of an old chronicler, Machyn, who lived in the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, that at the burial of the Countess of Arundel, October 27th, 1557, "cam iiij herroldes in ther cotes of armes, and bare iiij baners of emages at the iiij corners." Again, on "Aprell xxix, 1554, was bered my Lady Dudley in Saint Margarett in Westminster, with iiij baners of emages." Another item deals with the funeral of the Duchess of Northumberland, and here again "the iiij baners of ymages" again recur. Anyone having the old records, church inventories, and the like before them, would find it easy enough, as easy as needless, to multiply illustrations of this funeral use of pictured banners. These "emages" or "ymages" of old Machyn are of course not images in the sense of sculptured or carved things, but are painted and embroidered representations of various saints. Machyn, as a greatly interested looker-on at all the spectacles of his day, is most entertaining, but his spelling, according to the severer notions of the present day, is a little weak, as, for instance, in the following words that we have culled at random from his pages:—prossessyon, gaffelyns, fezyssyoun, dysquyet, neckclygens, gorgyusle, berehyng, wypyd, pelere, artelere, and dyssys of spyssys. The context ordinarily makes the meaning clear, but as our readers have not that advantage, we give the same words according to modern orthography—procession, javelins, physician, disquiet, negligence, gorgeously, burying, whipped, pillory, artillery, dishes of spices.

The various companies and guilds of the mediæval period had their special flags that came out, as do those of their successors of the present day, on the various occasions of civic pageantry; and in many cases, as may be seen in the illuminated MSS. in the British Museum and elsewhere, they were carried to battle as the insignia of the companies of men provided at the expense of those corporations. Thus in one example that has come under our notice we see a banner bearing a chevron between hammer, trowels, and builder's square; in another between an axe and two pairs of compasses, while a third on its azure field bears a pair of golden

shears. In the representation of a battle between Philip d'Artevelde and the Flemings against the French, many of the flags therein introduced bear the most extraordinary devices, boots and shoes, drinking-vessels, anvils, and the like, that owe their presence there to the fact that various trade guilds sent their contingents of men to the fight. In a French work on mediæval guilds we find the candle-makers of Bayeux marching beneath a black banner with three white candles on it, the locksmiths of La Rochelle having a scarlet flag with four golden keys on it. The lawyers of Loudoun had a flag with a large eye on it (a single eye to business being, we presume, understood), while those of Laval had a blue banner with three golden mouths thereon. In like manner the metal-workers of Laval carried a black flag with a silver hammer and files depicted on it, those of Niort had a red flag with a silver cup and a fork and spoon in gold on either side. The metal-workers of Ypres also carried a red flag, and on this was represented a golden flagon and two buckles of gold. Should some national stress this year or next lead our City Companies, the Fishmongers, the Carpenters, the Vintners, and others to contribute contingents to the defence of the country, and to send them forth beneath the banners of the guilds, history would but repeat itself.

In matters political the two great opposing parties have their distinctive colours, and these have ordinarily been buff and blue, though the association of buff with the Liberal party and "true blue" with the Conservatives has been by no means so entirely a matter of course as persons who have not looked into the matter might be disposed to imagine. The local colours are often those that were once the livery colours of the principal family in the district, and were assumed by its adherents for the family's sake quite independently of its political creed. The notion of livery is now an unpleasant one, but in mediæval days the colours of the great houses were worn by the whole country-side, and the wearing carried with it no suggestion either of toadyism or servitude. As this influence was hereditary and at one time all-powerful, the colour of the Castle, or Abbey, or Great House, became stereotyped in that district as the symbol of the party of which these princely establishments were the local centre and visible evidence, and the colour still often survives locally, though the political and social system that originated it has passed away in these days of democratic independence.

It would clearly be a great political gain if one colour were all over Great Britain the definite emblem of one side, as many illiterate voters are greatly influenced by the colours worn by the candidates for their suffrages, and have sufficient sense of consistency of principle to vote always for the flag that first claimed

their allegiance, though it may very possibly be that if they move to another county it is the emblem of a totally distinct party, and typifies opinions to which the voter has always been opposed. At a late election a Yorkshire Conservative, who had acquired a vote for Bournemouth, was told that he must "vote pink," but this he very steadily refused to do. He declared that he would "never vote owt else but th' old true blue," so the Liberal party secured his vote; and this sort of thing at a General Election is going on all over the country. The town of Royston, for instance, stands partly in Hertfordshire and partly in Cambridgeshire, and in the former county the Conservatives and in the latter the Liberals are the blue party; hence the significance of the colour in one street of the little town is entirely different to that it bears in another. At Horsham in Sussex we have observed that the Conservative colour is pale pink, while in Richmond in Surrey it is a deep orange. The orange was adopted by the Whigs out of compliment to William III., who was Prince of Orange.

In the old chronicles and ballads reference is made to many