ner of Cromwell and his guydon, and the bannerols of the families with which he was allied.

It appears by the bill rendered for the funeral expenses that the six great banners cost £6 each, and the five large standards, "wrought in rich taffety, in oyle, and guilt with fine gold and silver," cost £10 each; the guydon, "as large as a great banner," £6; and the twelve bannerols, £30.

At the Restoration, Cromwell's body and the bodies of his associates were dug up, suspended on Tyburn gallows for a day, and then buried under it. The head of Cromwell was taken off, carried to Westminster Hall, and fixed there, where it remained until the great tempest at the commencement of the eighteenth century, which blew it down, when it was picked up by the great-grandfather of its present possessor, a citizen of London, a significant commentary on earthly great"The body of Cromwell, carried to his burial in royal state, only a few years after his interment is rudely torn from its last resting-place, and the half-decayed carcass, dragged by the heels through the mud and mire of London, is hanged upon Tyburn tree, the head afterwards torn off and placed so that, in grinning horror, it ever looked towards the spot where King Charles was executed." 1

ness.

The GUYDON, or GUIDON, Fr. (derived from guide-homme), resembled a banner in form and emblazonment, but was one-third less in size, and had the end rounded off. It was the standard of a company of soldiers, and borne by their cornet.

"The guydhome must be two yards and a half or three yards longe, and therein shall no armes be putt, but only the mans crest, cognizance & devyce, and from that, from his standard and streamer, a man may flee, but not from his banner or pennon bearinge his armes."

"Place under the guidhome fifty men, by the conduct of an esquire or gentleman.” 2

Every guydon carried, in chief, a cross of St. George.

The PENNON (Fr.), sometimes spelled Pinione, was a small streamer half the size of the guydon, of a swallow-tailed form, attached to the handle of a spear or lance, such as the lancers of the present day carry. Afterwards, by increase in length and breadth, it became a military ensign, and was charged with the crest, badge, or war-cry of the

Pennon.

1 Anonymous; Prestwick.

2 MS. British Museum.

knight, — his arms being emblazoned on his banner, so arranged as to appear correctly when the lance was held in a horizontal position. The pennon charged with a cross is borne by St. George, St. Michael, and St. Ursula ; that of John the Baptist is inscribed with his words announcing the coming of Christ: "Ecce Agnus Dei." The illustration, a pennon of the earliest form, is copied from one held by the figure of Sir John Daubernoun, 1277, on his monumental brass in the church of Stoke D'Aubernoun, Surrey.

Daubernoun's Pennon, 1277.

A manuscript, giving the size of banners, &c., in the fifteenth century, says: "Every knight may have his pennon, if he be chiefe captaine, and in it sett his armes; and if he be made a banneret by the king or the lieutenant, shall make a slitte in the end of the pennon, and the heraldes shall raze it oute: and when a knight is made a banneret the heralds shall bringe him to his tente, and receive for their fees, three pounds, eleven shillings and four pence for every bachelor knight, and the trumpetter twenty shillings."

In Canterbury Tales,' Chaucer's knight says:

Sir Walter Scott thus alludes to the pennon in Marmion :'

Pavon.

"The trustiest of the four,

On high his forky pennon bore:

Like swallow's tail in shape and hue,
Fluttered the streamer, glossy blue,

Where blazoned sable, as before,

The towering falcon seemed to soar."

The PAVON was a peculiar-shaped flag, somewhat like a gryon attached to a spear. The cut is from an illuminated Psalter executed in 1340. The original is charged with the arms of Sir Geoffrey Loutterell: azure; a bend between six martlets argent.

PENONCELS, or PENSILS, were small narrow pennons, usually borne to ensign the helmet, or to form part of the caparisons of the knight's charger, though they were sometimes affixed to lances, as appears from a line of the 'Lyfe of Alesaunder,' a metrical romance of the fourteenth century,

"Many a fair pencel on spere."

ENSIGN (Wal. insigna; Span. ensena; Lat. insigne; Fr. ensigne; also in English, antient or ancient), applied first to the flag, is now applied both to the flag and its bearer. In 'Othello,' Cassio, in speaking of Iago, says, "The lieutenant is to be saved before the ancient." Edward the Black Prince commanded his 'ancient' bearer, Sir Walter Woodland, to march forward.1 King Richard took with him on his crusade the standard and ensigns of his kingdom. Of late years, the national flags borne by vessels of war or merchant ships have been known as ensigns, and a grade of junior officers has been introduced into the United States navy, who are styled 'ensigns,' though their duties necessarily have no connection with the colors. The French also have a class of officers in their navy styled ensigns de vaisseaux.1

Winthrop, in his 'History of New England,' mentions, under date Saturday, May 22, 1634, his meeting, on his passage across the Atlantic, a small French vessel, and "when we drew near her, we put forth our 'ancient,' and she luffed up the wind to us."

That celebrated piece of royal embroidery, the Bayeux tapestry, the handiwork of Matilda, the consort of William the Conqueror, and her ladies, exhibits a display of the military ensigns in use at the period of the conquest by the Norman invaders and the Saxon occupants of England. The examples I have given from it afford an idea. of the shape and devices of the ensigns of the chieftains of the eleventh century.2

The Bayeux tapestry, divided into compartments showing the events from Harold's visit to the Norman court to his death at Hastings, is preserved in the public library at Bayeux, near Caen, Normandy. Only within a few years has it been where it could be seen with comfort or ability to appreciate its merits, having formerly been kept on a huge cylinder, from which an official unrolled seventy-two yards on to another cylinder. In this way it was carried through France in 1803, by order of Bonaparte, to be displayed from the stages of the theatres as an incentive to the public mind not to revive this kind of work, but to awaken the people to a project then on foot for the invasion of England. Now this grand work is shown. on the walls of the town library, it consisting of a strip of linen cloth 218 feet long, and 1 foot 8 inches wide, having worked upon its entire length a series of fifty-eight scenes, representing the events in the 'Norman Conquests,' in which there are more than ten thousand figures, many of them being men who are 10 to 12 inches high; then there are horses, dogs, ships, and houses, and a running border 1 Boutell's Heraldry.

2 Stow.

with innumerable figures, all worked in worsted, and with only eight colors, dark and light blue, red, yellow, buff, and two shades of green; the horses are either blue, red, green, or yellow, to suit the surroundings.

Thus the queen has handed down to the present day a memorial so explicit in its details and graphic in its delineations as to form a valuable standard of reference in an archæological point of view, and at the same time a perfect mirror of the curious usages, economy, manners, and even looks of the people of her time. Over each scene

is written, also in needle-work, the subject, in Roman capitals, in the Latin language.1

The number of pennons carried by the Norman soldiers figured in the entire tapestry amounts to thirty-seven, and of these no less than twenty-eight have their ends cut into three points or flames.

Mr. French argues that the three-pointed ends on these pennons symbolize the Holy Trinity, as did those of crusaders of the first crusade subsequently. Whether the pennons with their triple terminations were intended to symbolize the Trinity or not, there is no doubt of their having been used extensively. When the crusader returned, this symbol of his hostility to the Saracen was removed, as shown on the tomb of Edward Crookback, Earl of Lancaster, the brother of Edward I., who returned from the first crusade of 1270. The tomb remains to this day, though defaced. In 1783, the colors were copied, and each of the figures of the ten knights who accompanied him to the East and returned with him to England are represented as holding a square banner.

GONFANONS were properly sacred banners carried in religious processions, and as such Chaucer and Milton speak of them. The great

Gonfanon.

standard or banner of St. Mark was styled a gonfanon. The gonfanon was bordered with fringe or twisted silk, and usually supported as shown in the illustration. In the Lyfe of Alesaunder' we read,

"Ther gonfannons and their penselles

Dr. Myrick considers the small pennon attached to a lance in the hand of William the Conqueror on his great seal as a gonfanon, differing from a banner, being, instead of square and fastened to a tronsure bar, of the same figure as the gonfanon, fixed in a frame, and made to turn like a modern ship's vane, with two or three streamers or tails. The object of the gonfanon was principally to render the leaders more conspicuous to their followers, and to terrify the horses

1 Mrs. Emma D. Southworth, Cor. Boston Traveller,' Oct. 4, 1879. A copy drawn by C. Stothard, and colored after the originals, was published by the Society of Antiquaries in 1821-23. A fac-simile in chromo-lithograph, the full size of the original, has been published. In 1856, the Rev. John Collingwood Bruce published a quarto volume, entitled 'The Bayeux Tapestry elucidated,' which has reduced colored illustrations of the entire roll. In 1857, the Journal of the Archæological Association of Great Britain printed a paper by Gilbert J. French on the 'Banners of the Bayeux Tapestry,' which was subsequently published in a thin 8vo volume, for presentation only.