the total cost of these flags reaching the large amount (for those days) of £221. Very little record remains of the flags flown by British merchant ships during this period. It has been already remarked that those going to Flanders at the end of the thirteenth century were ordered to fly the royal arms, and banners of these arms appear on the ships in the early seals of Lyme Regis, Hastings and Bristol. The fifteenth century seal of Yarmouth (Plate III, fig. 2) shows the banner of St George on the forecastle, a pendant with cross of St George in chief at the masthead, and a banner of the arms of Yarmouth[115] (closely resembling the Cinque Ports flag but with herrings' tails substituted for the dimidiated hulks) upon the stern castle. In the seal of Tenterden (Plate III, fig. 7) and of Rye, also of the fifteenth century, the banner of St George is prominent. It seems probable that from the fourteenth century onwards ships not belonging to the king or the nobility flew the flag of St George when they flew any flag at all. In ships belonging to the greater nobles the custom appears to have been to display a streamer of the owner's badges; thus the ships in the "Warwick Pageant[116]," drawn circa 1490, display streamers containing the badges of the bear and ragged staff with St George's cross in chief. Ships of lesser owners, belonging to an important seaport such as the Cinque Ports or Yarmouth, appear to have flown the recognised flag of that port in addition to a flag or streamer of St George. By the end of the sixteenth century the use of the royal arms had become confined to the Admiral of the Fleet; the royal badges had nearly disappeared from the sea, though they are occasionally to be met with during the next century, and the flag of St George had taken the lead as the distinguishing characteristic of English ships, both men-of-war and merchantmen. [Illustration: PLATE III Seals] (ii) SCOTLAND The history of the national flags of Scotland is much less complicated than that of the flags of England, for the northern nation had decided upon their patron saint at a much earlier date than their neighbours south of the Tweed. There was a similar struggle for supremacy among competing saints, but the issue was decided in the eighth century and appears to have remained unchallenged ever since. In the words of Wm Forbes Skene, the Scottish historian,