CHAPTER XLI
THE UNION JACK
By Rev. J. R. CRAWFORD
ORDERS in Council and other official documents refer to this flag as the Union Flag, The Union Jack, Our Jack, The King's Colours, and the Union Banner, which last title precise Heraldry usually adopts. In patriotic songs it is toasted as "The Red, White, and Blue," whilst in the Services men affectionately allude to it as "the dear old duster." But Britons at large cling to the title which heads this chapter; to them it is "The Union Jack."
Why Union? Obviously because it unites three emblems of tutelar saints on one flag, and thereby denotes the union of three peoples under one Sovereign. It is the motto "Tria juncta in Uno" rendered in bunting.
Why Jack? Two theories are propounded, one fanciful, the other probable. Some say "Jack" is the anglicised form of "Jacques," which is the French signature of James I., in whose reign and by whose command the first Union Flag was called into being. Against this at least three reasons may justly be urged: (1) The term "Jack" does not appear—so far as we can discover—in any warrant referring to the Jacobean Flag of 1606. It is rather in later documents that this term occurs. (2) If the earliest Union Flag be a "Jack" just because it is the creation of James, then surely it follows that, to be consistent, later Union Flags, the creations of later sovereigns, should have borne those Sovereigns' names; for example The Union Anne, The Union George! (3) The English way of pronouncing "Jacques" is not, and probably never was Jack, but Jaikes. The other, and more feasible theory, is as follows: The term "Jaque" (e.g. jaque de mailles) was borrowed from the French and referred to any jacket or coat on which, especially, heraldic emblems were blazoned. In days long prior to those of the first Stuart king, mention is made of "whytte cotes with red crosses worn by shyppesmen and men of the cette of London," from which sentence we learn that the emblem of the nation's tutelar saint was (as in yet earlier Crusaders' days) a fighter's emblem. When such emblem or emblems were transferred to a flag,
