We learn from the "Siege of Carlaverock" that a pennon hung out by the besieged was the signal for a parley. When the castle surrendered there were placed on its battlements, we are told, the banners of the king, of St. George, of St. Edmund, and St. Edward, together with those of the marshall and constable of the army. To these were added the banner of the individual to whose custody the castle was committed. But it is doubtful whether in the fifteenth century any others but those of the king and St. George were affixed to captured fortresses. In France the office of custodier of national banners--such as the Oriflamme--was hereditary. It was the same in Ireland, which claims a higher antiquity in the use of banners than any other European nation; and in Scotland the representative of the great house of Scrymgeour enjoys the honour of being banner-bearer to the sovereign.[14] [14] _Vicissitudes of Families and other Essays_, by Sir Bernard Burke, 1st series, p. 387. It was the custom in early times to have banners suspended from trumpets. At the battle of Agincourt the Duke of Brabant, who arrived on the field towards the close of the conflict, is said, by St. Remy, to have taken one of the banners from his trumpeters, and, cutting a hole in the middle, made a surcoat of arms of it. To this circumstance Shakespeare thus alludes-- "I will a banner from my trumpet take And use it for my haste." Chaucer, too, notices banners being suspended from trumpets-- "On every trump hanging a brod banere, Of fine tartarium full richly bete, Every trumpet his lorde's armes bere."[15] [15] _Flour and the Leafe_, 1 211. At coronations banners were also used; and in the fifteenth century heralds, when despatched on missions, appear to have carried a banner bearing their sovereign's arms. Banners were also for a long time used at funerals. It was not till about the period of the Revolution that the practice fell into comparative desuetude. STANDARDS--THE ROYAL STANDARD. The Standard was a large long flag, gradually tapering towards the fly. According to the representation of a standard, in a heraldic MS. at least as early as the reign of Henry VII., in the British Museum, it was not quite so deep but very much longer than a banner,[16] and it varied in size according to the rank of the owner. In England that of a duke was seven yards in length, of a banneret four and a half, and of a knight-bachelor four yards. [16] _Harleian MSS._ 2259, f. 186. The Royal Standard of England, when the sovereign in person commanded the army, appears to have been of two sizes. According to the MS. referred to, one of these standards is to be "sett before the Kynges pavillion or tente, and not to be borne in battayle, and to be in length eleven yards." The other--"the Kynges standard _to be borne_"--is to be "in lengthe eight or nine yards."