HEART BURIAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 27 August 1891, Page 4

HEART BURIAL.

Sir Nicholas Crispe, Bart., one of the most devoted adherents of the house oi Stuart, during his lifetime caused to be placed high up on the north wall ofthe nave of the church of St. Paul, Hammersmith, Middlesex, a large monument of black and white marble to the memory of Charles 1., surmounted by a bust of the King. A pedestal of black marble in the form of a column reaches about halfway up the monument, and on top of this is placed a stone urn enclosing the heart of Sir Nicholas Crispe. I He himself was interred in the family vault I in the church of St. Mildred, Bread Street, j London, but he directed that his heart Bhould be placed in this urn. A long inscription, in gold letters, on the pedestal records the fact that his heart is " entombed" within the urn ; it also gives the date of his death— February 26, 1665— at the age of 67 years. It was the custom to take out the heart on the anniversary of its entombment and refresh it with a glass of wine, but after the expiration of more than a century and a half it became decayed and was enclosed in a leaden case, which is no doubt still in the urn. Victor Hugo in his " History of a Crime" mentions that the representative Gindrier, who was prominent during the coup d'etat, had the body of ex-constituent James Do- ' montry, who had died in exile at Cologne I in 1850, exhumed. GindrierhadDemontry's 1 heart extracted, embalmed it, and enclosed | it in a silver vase, which he took to Paria. ■ The party of the mountain delegated him. with Chollet and Joigneux, to convey this heart to Dijon, Demontry's native place, and give it a solemn funeral. This funeral was prohibited by Louis Bonaparte, then President of the Republic. Victor Hugo does not say what eventually became of iJemontry's beart. ..-/*, THE NATIONAL FLAG. The national flag, or Union Jack, of old England, is composed of a union of the crosses of St. George, of St. Andrew, and of St. Patrick respectively; hence the Union Jack. But why Jack ? Some ' writers suggest that the word Jack arose from the fact that James I. was the first to blend the red cross of St. George with the cross saltire of St. Andrew, and that this flag was called a Jack from the Latinised form of the King's name Jacobus. This hypothesis is overruled by the fact that Charles 11. issued a proclamation charging the merchant ships that they " do not bear his Majesty's Jack (commonly called the Union Jack) without special warrant, but that they must keep to the flags, Jacks, and ensigns heretofore worn by them." It is evident from this that some kind of small flags were known as jacks previous to the time of James I. It has been suggested that the name arose from the fact that when the army of Richard 11. invaded Scotland, that King ordered that " everi man, of what estate, condicion, or nation thei be, if so that he be of oure partie, beare a signe of the arms of St. George, large, both before and behind." And as the upper part of the dress of a horse-man was called a Jack, it came to pass that small flags for the use of sailors, which bore only the symbol of a cross, came to be called jacks. In "heraldic language the English flag is thus described : — Azure, the crosses saltire of St. Andrew and St. Patrick quarterly, per saltire counter-changed argent and gules, the latter fimbriated, and the second surmounted by the cross of St. George of the Third, fimbriated as the saltire." In plain language the three national flags seem to have been blended as follows :-— First, the Scotch flag was taken, blue, with a white diagonal cross ; then the red cross from the English flag was placed over this ; then upon the union with Ireland, tha Irish flag, a red diagonal cross on a white ground, had to be combined, and this was done by what is called counterchanging. Although the present arrangement of the flag has been described as " false heraldry," yet the combination has a very picturesque effect, and we should deprecate any alteration of the brave old flag, " the flag that has braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze," and which we hope may brave them for a thousand years moro.