The war flag of the defunct temporal power of the Pope was white, and in its centre stood figures of St. Peter and St. Paul, and above them the cross keys and tiara. Fig. 198 was the flag of the merchant ships owned by the subjects of the States of the Church. The combination of yellow and white is very curious. In the banner borne by Godfrey, the Crusader King of Jerusalem, the only tinctures introduced were the two metals, gold and silver, five golden crosses being placed upon a silver field. This was done of deliberate intention that it might be unlike all other devices, as it is in all other cases deemed false heraldry to place metal on metal. The theory that these metals were selected because of the reference in the Psalms to the Holy City, may also be a very possible one--"Though ye have lien amongst the pots, yet shall ye {115} be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." However this may be, the yellow and white of the arms of Jerusalem was adopted by the Papal Government. The Danish flag is the oldest now in existence. In the year 1219, King Waldemar of Denmark in a critical moment in his stormy career, saw, or thought he saw, or said he saw, a cross in the sky. He was then leading his troops to battle against the Livonian pagans, and he gladly welcomed this answer to his prayers for Divine succour, this assurance of celestial aid. This sign from Heaven he forthwith adopted as the flag of his country, and called it the Dannebrog, _i.e._, the strength of Denmark. As a definite chronological fact, apart from all legend, this flag dates from the thirteenth century. There was also an Order of Dannebrog instituted in 1219, in further commemoration and honour of the miracle; and the name is a very popular one in the Danish Royal Navy, one man-of-war after another succeeding to the appellation. One of these Dannebrogs was blown up by the fire of Nelson's fleet in 1801. The Danish Man-of-War Ensign is shown in Fig. 224. The Royal Standard, like the Ensign, is swallow-tailed, but in the centre of the cross is placed a white square, indicated in our illustration, Fig. 224, by dots. This central, square space contains the Royal Arms, surrounded by the Collars of the Orders of the Elephant and of the Dannebrog. The merchant flag, Fig. 225, is rectangular. In the year 1397, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark all formed one kingdom under the rule of the latter, but in 1414 the Swedes waged with more or less success an arduous struggle for liberty, and their independence was definitely acknowledged in the year 1523. The flag of Sweden is the yellow cross on the blue ground shown in Fig. 231. The blue and yellow are the colours of the Swedish arms,[77] and they were then doubtless chosen for the flag as the colours of freedom and independence.