With the departure of the Columban Clergy, the veneration of St Columba as the apostle of the northern Picts seems to have been given up, at least by the southern portion of that people, and St Peter now became the patron saint of the kingdom and continued to be so till the year 736, when Angus the son of Fergus established his power by the defeat of Nectan himself, and the other competitors for the throne. As the king rapidly brought the territories of the other Pictish families under his sway, and even added Dalriada to his kingdom, he seemed desirous to connect a new ecclesiastical influence with his reign, for in the same year that he completed the conquest of Dalriada he founded a church at St Andrews, in which he placed a new body of clergy, who had brought the relics of St Andrew with them, and this apostle soon became the more popular patron saint of the kingdom, while the previous patronage of St Peter disappeared from the annals[117]. It is probable that the cross-saltire was adopted by the Scots as a national ensign at a very early period, but there seems no direct evidence of this before the fourteenth century. The earliest Scottish records were unfortunately lost at sea in the ship that was sent to return them to that country, whence they had been carried off, with the Stone of Destiny, by Edward I. In the summer of the year 1385 the Scots planned a raid into England, in which they were assisted by a considerable contingent of French. The Ordinances for the allied army drawn up by the Council for this occasion and promulgated on the 1st July contained the following proviso: Item every man French and Scots shall have a sign before and behind, namely a white St Andrew's Cross, and if his jack is white or his coat white he shall bear the said white cross in a piece of black cloth round or square[118]. It will be noted that the field on which the cross-saltire was to be placed was immaterial, but if the coat happened to be white the field was to be black. There is other evidence that the ground colour was not an essential part of the design, although the prevailing colour at a later date seems to have been blue. In the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland[119] for the year 1512 there is recorded a payment for a roll of blue say for the banner of a ship "with Sanct Androis cors in the myddis." In 1513 the ground colour was also blue. In 1523, however, when orders were again issued for each man to bear the white saltire before and behind, no ground was mentioned, while in 1540 and 1542 the ground colour of the ensigns was yellow and red (the Stuart livery colours) or red, as the following entries show: 1540 Item, the x day of Junii deliverit to Thomas Arthur to be iii anseƷeis[120] to the schippis xvj elnis reid and Ʒallow taffites of cord, price of the elne xviij s. Summa xiiij li. viij s.