It has been held that the American Eagle and the stars and stripes of the national flag were suggested by the crest and arms of the Washington family. This statement has been often made; hence we find an American patriot writing:--"It is not a little curious that the poor, worn-out rag of feudalism, as many would count it, should have expanded into the bright and ample banner that now waves on every sea." But that it should be so seems by no means an established fact. No reference is made to it in Washington's correspondence, or in that of any of his contemporaries. The arms of the Washington family are a white shield having two horizontal red bars, and above these a row of three red stars; and this certainly bears some little resemblance to the American flag, but how much is mere coincidence, and how much is adaptation it is impossible to say. These arms may be seen on a brass in Solgrave Church, Huntingdonshire, on the tomb of Laurence Washington, the last lineal ancestor who was buried in England. He was twice Mayor of Northampton, in 1533 and in 1546, and the first President of the United States was his great-great-grandson. He was a man of considerable influence, and on the dissolution of the monasteries Henry gave him the Priory of St. Andrews, Northampton. In the troublous times that succeeded, his son John went to America, and lived for some twenty years on the banks of the Potomac. Another theory that has been advanced is that the blue quarter was taken from the blue banner of the Scotch Covenanters, and was therefore significant of the Solemn League and Covenant of the United Colonies against oppression, while the stripes were a blending of the red colours used in the army with the white flags used in the navy. We give the theory for what it is worth, which we venture to say is not very much; but as it was advanced by an American writer, we give it place. Should our readers care to consider yet another theory, they may learn that the genesis of the star-spangled banner was very much less prosaic. Prose has it that a Committee of Council, accompanied by General Washington, called on Mrs. Ross, an upholstress of Arch Street, Philadelphia, and engaged her to make a flag from a rough sketch that they brought with them, that she in turn suggested one or two practical modifications, and that at her wish Washington re-drew it there and then, that she at once set to work on it, and in a few hours the first star-spangled flag was floating in the breeze; but the poet ignores the services of Mrs. Ross altogether, and declares that {92}