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The Flag of England
or an eradication
of the English?
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The origins of the Cross of St George are not entirely known but a flag very similar to it was brought to these shores by William of Normandy at the beginning of the 1066 invasion. A banner with a red cross on a white background was the papal cross awarded to William by the Pope as his ‘holy’ banner to invade England that year. This emblem was seen again over a century later during the Crusades, again as a holy banner for invasion. It could be argued that because the Normans wanted to eradicate the Anglo Saxon heroism which had gone before them such as Alfred the Great and St Edmund, they tried to champion pre-Saxon heroes such as Roman/British King Arthur. The Norman king Edward 1st once wanted to revive that chivalric period of King Arthur where the red cross used by Arthur’s knights might have also influenced the later Crusades. This symbol was always in the psyche at the time as Richard the Lionheart leading the Crusades was supposed to have had a vision where St George came to him in an image of red and white. It came as no surprise that St George, a pre-Saxon hero who lived and died before England had even been heard of, years later became favoured over St Edmund as the patron saint.
During the time of Anglo Saxon England no flag existed to represent the nation as a whole, only emblems for the nation's particular regions such as Mercia, Wessex etc. This being the case how can we possibly restore something that never existed in the first place? Because Saxon England was an 'arrested development' we can only surmise what WOULD have been the national flag had a foreign invasion not have taken place wiping out the soul and identity we once knew. The latest known emblem that the English army flew at Hastings in the face of this invasion was a windsock Dragon emblem popular with the kings of Wessex, the last English king being from the county of Wessex. These days that emblem is a gold wyvern on a red background representing Wessex which may or may not have become the national flag had the Battle of Hastings been won by the English. Using the flag of Wessex to represent the whole of England may seem biased towards this particular county so perhaps it would be better that a whole new flag was designed using the features of a dragon or wyvern.
Why a dragon and what options do we have for a relevant flag?
The earliest symbols we had relating to a dragon or wyvern was in fact a WHITE SERPENT brought in by the earliest Saxon settlers giving rise to the popular notion of the White Dragon going into battle with the native Briton's Red Dragon as prophesised by King Arthur. The White Dragon was adopted by Mercians and no doubt became the base of the gold wyvern representing Wessex but the sad fact remains how our Cymruan neighbours (the Welsh) still sport their native dragon with pride while ours became buried under 900 years of conquest.
Whether white or gold - it is essential that the English Dragon rises once again and the legacy of King Harold regains our True English Identity!
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