none, it seems that only one solution of the problem, the present one, is possible. In the same way the Union flag (Fig. 90) is literally but the symbol of England, Scotland, and Ireland, but far and away outside its primary significance, it floats on every sea the emblem of that Greater Britain in which all its sons have equal pride, and where all share equal honour as brethren of one family. The earliest Royal Standard bore but the three lions of England, and we shall see presently that in different reigns various modifications of its blazonry arose, either the result of conquest or of dynastic possessions. Thus Figs. 43 and 44, though they bear a superficial likeness, tell a very different story; the first of these, that of George III., laying claim in its fourth quartering to lordship over Hanover and other German States, and in its second quarter to the entirely shadowy and obsolete claim over France, as typified by the golden fleurs-de-lys on the field of azure. How the three lions of England arose is by no means clear. Two lions were assigned as the arms of William the Conqueror, but there is no real evidence that he bore them. Heraldry had not then become a definite science, and when it did a custom sprang up of assigning to those who lived and died before its birth certain arms, the kindly theory being that such persons, had they been then living, would undoubtedly have borne arms, and that it was hard, therefore, that the mere accident of being born a hundred years too soon should debar them from possessing such recognition of their rank. Even so late as Henry II. the bearing is still traditional, and it is said that on his marriage with Alianore, eldest daughter of William, Duke of Aquitaine and Guienne, he incorporated with his own two lions the single lion that (it is asserted) was the device of his father-in-law. All this, however, is theory and surmise, and we do not really find ourselves on the solid ground of fact until we come to the reign of Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Upon his second Great Seal we have the three lions just as they are represented in Figs. 22, 43, 44, and as they have been borne for centuries by successive sovereigns on their arms, standards, and coinage, and as our readers may see them this day on the Royal Standard and on much of the money they may take out of their pockets. The date of this Great Seal of King Richard is 1195 A.D., so we have, at all events, a period of over seven hundred years, waiving a break during the Commonwealth, in which the three golden lions on their scarlet field have typified the might of England. {31}