The Flags of the World: Their History, Blazonry, and AssociationsHulme, F. Edward (Frederick Edward)
History
The Flags of the World: Their History, Blazonry, and Associations
Hulme, F. Edward (Frederick Edward)
Flags
Why St. Andrew was selected to be the Patron Saint of Scotland has never
been satisfactorily settled.[30] Some uncharitable enquirer has hazarded
the explanation that it was because it was this Apostle who discovered the
lad who had the loaves and fishes. Others tell us that one Hungus, a
Pictish prince, dreamt that the Saint was to be his champion in a fight
just then pending with the men of Northumbria, and that a cross--the symbol
of the crucifixion of this Apostle--appeared in the sky, the celestial omen
strengthening the hearts and arms of the men of Hungus to such effect that
the Northumbrians were completely routed. Should neither of these
explanations appear sufficiently explanatory, we can offer yet a third. On
the martyrdom of St. Andrew, in the year 69, at Patræ, in Achaia, his
remains were carefully preserved as relics, but in the year 370, Regulus,
one of the Greek monks who had them in their keeping, was warned in a
vision that the Emperor Constantine was proposing to translate these
remains to Constantinople, and that he must at once visit the shrine and
remove thence an arm bone, three fingers of the right hand, and a tooth,
and carry them away over sea to the west. Regulus was much troubled at the
vision, but hastened to obey it, so putting the relics into a chest he set
sail with some half-dozen other ecclesiastics, to whom he confided the
celestial instructions that he had received. After a stormy voyage the
vessel was at last dashed upon a rock, and Regulus and his companions
landed on an unknown shore, and found themselves in a dense and gloomy
forest. Here they were presently discovered by the aborigines, whose leader
listened to their story and gave them land on which to build a church for
the glory of God and the enshrining of the relics. This inhospitable shore
proved to be that of "Caledonia, stern and wild," and the little forest
church and hamlet that sprang up around it were the nucleus that thence and
to the present day have been known as St. Andrews, a thriving, busy town in
Fife, and for centuries the seat of a bishopric. On July 5th, 1318, Robert
the Bruce repaired hither and testified his gratitude to God for the
victory vouchsafed to the Scots at Bannockburn by the intercession of St.
Andrew, guardian of the realm, when thirty thousand Scots defeated one
hundred thousand Englishmen. What St. George could have been doing to allow
this, seems a very legitimate question, but we can scarcely wonder that the
Scots should very gladly appoint so potent a protector their patron, and
look to him for succour in all their national difficulties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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