Constantius had lived, and Constantine the Great had been born and brought up, in the north of England, which, during the Roman occupation, had been converted to Christianity by missionaries from Scotland, whence St. Patrick afterwards also went to Ireland; and as it was to Constantine that the Christians owed their rescue from persecution, his insignia would, therefore, be heartily received. The early Christians, through this source, may have adopted the X cross, the lower part of Constantino's Christian monogram, as their emblem, and thus it had become associated in Ireland with the Christian labours of St. Patrick, their apostle and patron saint. In this "story of the Irish Jack," it is a notable transition that the harp emblem of Hibernia, carried by Constantius, and transmitted by him to his son, and by Constantine changed to the Christian Labarum, should in this diagonal cross of St. Patrick have been returned to become the emblem of Ireland. Whichever may have been the source of its origin, the saltire cross, in its form of the red cross of St. Patrick, is by both lines of descent intimately associated with the history of Ireland, and is rightfully claimed as one of its national emblems. The harp, too, has its story much later than that of St. Patrick's cross, but yet bringing an interesting connection with the patron saint. The ancient arms of Ireland, from the time of Henry II., in 1172, had been three golden crowns set upon a blue ground.[76] [76] "The Book of Public Arms." These ancient arms of Ireland are the arms of the Province of Munster, and are now worn on the helmet plate and glengarry of the Royal Munster Fusiliers regiment of the British army. Henry VIII. was the first English king who used an Irish emblem. When he was proclaimed King of Ireland, he placed the harp of Hibernia upon the coinage which he then issued, instead of the "three crowns" which had been used under his predecessors, but he did not introduce the harp into his royal arms, nor place the red cross of St. Patrick upon his banner.