The date at which St George's cross became accepted as the English national flag has also yet to be ascertained. It does not appear to have been used as such at the time of the Third Crusade. In January, 1188, when Henry II and his followers enrolled themselves in response to the preaching of William of Tyre, they received white crosses, while the French took red and the Flemings green ones[97]. At first sight it may seem that there is some error in this statement. We know that at a later period the English had adopted the red cross on white ground while the French made use of a white one on a blue ground. Cleirac[98], writing in 1661 and knowing of no other authority for the statement than Matthew Paris, attempted to solve this difficulty by "restoring" the text and interchanging "red" and "white," but this simple expedient is not allowed to the modern student. The statement occurs not only in Matthew Paris, who had probably taken it from the Abbot Benedict's _Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi_, but also in the works of John de Oxenedes, Bartholomew de Cotton, Roger de Wendover and Ralph de Diceto. It is not probable that so many contemporary, or nearly contemporary, writers would make or repeat such a statement if it were erroneous. Time and circumstances have not permitted of an absolutely exhaustive examination of the public records, but after a lengthy search in all likely places the author has not been able to find any mention of the "arms" or flag of St George in English earlier than the year 1277. In the roll of accounts[99] relating to the Welsh War of that year (the fifth of Edward I) occur payments to Admetus, the king's tailor, for the purchase of white and coloured cloth, buckram, etc., for the manufacture of pennoncels and bracers "of the arms of St George." In the original these entries have all been struck through, probably because they were accounted for elsewhere in some roll now perished. While this account only mentions three streamers of the king's arms, it includes the comparatively large number of 340 pennoncels of St George's arms. It is probable that banners of the king's arms and of the arms of St Edward and St Edmund were also in use, together with banners of the feudal lords taking the field, just as we find them in use twenty-three years later at the siege of Carlaverock[100], but it is evident from the entries above referred to that the arms of St George were in great, if not exclusive, demand for the smaller flags, which in some cases are expressly stated to be for the king's foot soldiers (_pro peditibus regis_). We have, therefore, in determining the probable date of the introduction of St George's cross as an English national flag to take into account the following facts. In the year 1188 the red cross was not a mark of English nationality, although it was certainly in use in the East and by the Genoese as a religious emblem associated with St George.