blisse your sacred Majestie with a lang and prosperous reignne and eternall felicitie[144]. There is nothing to show that this appeal met with any response, but the Scots never took kindly to the new flag and rarely used it until after the Legislative Union of 1707. Sir Edward Nicholas in 1634 was doubtful "whether the Scots have used to carry that Flag of the Union." It is unfortunate that these "drafts and patterns" have disappeared, perhaps in the same fire that consumed the "form" made by the heralds. There is no doubt about the main outline, but the absence of precise detail has led several writers--purists in heraldic matters--to contend that the white border of the red cross was simply a narrow fimbriation[145]. I think, however, that examination of the available evidence will show that this border did not originate as a mere "fimbriation," that it was in fact part of the field of the English flag, and that the new flag was, as described by Sir James Balfour[146], "the flagis of St Andrew and St George interlaced," not merely the red cross surmounting the Scots flag. Material proof that it was so regarded sixty years later is in existence in Amsterdam in the shape of actual flags captured during the Second and Third Dutch Wars, and belonging therefore to the second half of the seventeenth century. These show a very wide border to the red cross, and in two instances[147] the red cross, the white border and the white saltire are each of the same width. The heralds had been faced by a dilemma. It was impossible to combine the two flags so as to form a new one without giving precedence to one of them. If quartered, the upper canton next the staff was the place of honour, and both could not occupy it at the same time. In the reign of James II this difficulty was solved, in the case of the Royal Arms, by placing the Scots' Lion in the first quarter in the Great Seal of Scotland. Possibly a similar solution was suggested by the Scottish shipmasters. But there was a precedent for a closer union than this quartered form, which no doubt the heralds had in mind. Elizabeth had granted the Levant Company, by her charters of 1581 and 1592, the right to wear as a flag "the Armes of England with the redde crosse in white over the same[148]." We may be quite sure that in consenting to such an arrangement Elizabeth had no thought of giving the national flag precedence over the royal standard, but merely wished to signify their intimate union and the extension of the royal protection to the company. The method adopted in 1606 was exactly the same, the "red cross in white" being placed over the Scots flag.